


This Town is Wrong

by brooklinegirl



Series: This Town is Wrong [1]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 21:19:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brooklinegirl/pseuds/brooklinegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank is in high school, Gerard is in college, and neither of them is heading in the right direction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Town is Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Beta notes: Thank you so, so much to my betas, desfinado and mrsronweasley. You guys, as ever, are totally amazing and SKILLED and fabulous at kicking my ass. ♥
> 
>  
> 
>  **Bonus Content:** [_Something to Believe_](http://brooklinegirl.livejournal.com/761222.html), a mix by ladyfoxxx.

Gerard sees this guy from across the room at the mid-year art show. The guy has, like, way too much product in his hair and it's all standing crazy. He's wearing a black t-shirt inside out and it shouldn't look hot, but _does_ , maybe because he's got tattoos all down one arm. Gerard spends way too long covertly staring, trying to read the words that are printed on the shirt, backwards on this guy's chest.

Gerard's still staring when he sees Mikey head over to him, and they hug. (How does Mikey know this hot guy well enough to get a hug? Also, oh man, this dude is tiny, he looks like a kid next to Mikey). When he stretches up into the hug, this guy's shirt lifts up and Gerard is pretty sure he's got tattoos on his _belly_ , too. He doesn't get to really _see_ them, he just spots the lines, and he's…intrigued. He perks up a little for the first time that night.

He glances over at his mom, who is standing with her hands clasped in front of Gerard's piece. Gerard's just not feeling it - the show feels more like _marketing_ than art to him, and he's spent most of the night fidgeting and biting his nails. His mom grabs some passer-by, pulls them over to come look at Gerard's work (it's this huge abstract piece in charcoal, all angry dark lines and formless sketches representing the rigidity of urban architecture, which look different every time Gerard looks at it. He worked on it for months, and he's pretty happy with how it came out, but he really couldn’t fucking care less about what these random people think of it).

Gerard takes his opportunity to drift over to where the tiny guy is standing in front of some giant twisted sculpture piece and looking all furtive, like he really, really wants to poke at it.

Gerard never does this - he doesn't just go up to hot tattooed guys and start talking to them. Mostly he just…lurks, and sneaks peeks, but man, he's just fucking done with how everything's been going in his life, and he feels like he's got nothing to lose. "It'll fall over if you, like, breathe on it too hard."

The dude grins at him, like he knows he's an easy read. "That sort of makes me want to touch it even more."

Gerard can't help but grin back. The guy's smile is contagious. "I'm Gerard," he offers.

"Frank," the guy says back, and grips Gerard's hand in this really firm, perfect grip. Not like he's trying too hard or anything, he's just got a really good handshake. Which apparently Gerard is a sucker for. Frank's also really fucking gorgeous, even more so up close. He's _pretty_ , in that way that his mom is always telling _Gerard_ that he's pretty, like a girl, but not.

"I like your ink," Gerard says, reaching out to not quite touch, just sort of trace his hand in the air right above the chainsaw wrapping around the guy's bicep.

"Thanks." Frank tilts his arm so Gerard can see the tattoo better. "It's one of my favorites."

"Do you have a lot more?" Gerard really wants to ask about the ones on his stomach. It's going to be a _problem_ , he's pretty sure, because he can't stop thinking about them, the dark lines of ink that he'd caught just a glimpse of.

Frank flashes that grin again. "Yep." That's all he says, but he says it like he knows just exactly where that train of thought that leads to - _what_ and _where_ and…yeah. Which is pretty much where Gerard's mind is - he's kind of ready to be on his knees and pushing up Frank's t-shirt to get a look, to trace the lines with his fingers, with his tongue.

Gerard opens his mouth to say he doesn't even know what, but his advisor appears at his elbow and steers him away to go talk to some guy he doesn't care about even half as much as he cares about Frank and his _tattoos_.

By the time Gerard comes back, Frank is gone.

"Mikey," Gerard asks from the backseat on the ride home. Mikey has shotgun, because Mikey always remembers to call shotgun first. "That guy that was there tonight, with the tattoos?"

"Frank?" Mikey says, twisting around to look at Gerard. "What about him?"

"Do you, uh, have his number, by any chance?" Gerard knows he does. Mikey has _everyone's_ number.

Mikey rolls his eyes, and Gerard's mom is totally watching him in the rearview window, and they're both grinning a little bit. Gerard slouches down further in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest and sighing. "Can you just give me his damn number?"

Mikey pushes his glasses up with the back of his hand, and turns back around. "Yes. Yes, I can." He pauses. "You know he's in high school, right?"

Gerard looks at the back of Mikey's head. High school. Oh. "…right."

Mikey tilts his head a little bit. "Senior," he offers.

"Right," Gerard says again. Senior. That's okay. That's…not as bad. And honestly, Gerard doesn't care about having to ask his kid brother for help in picking up, apparently, high school guys, because at least he has Frank's number now.

Even if all he does it stick it in his wallet and not call, because a) he's a nervous loser, and b) he has no fucking time for anything he actually wants to do. He's got school, plus his internship (at DC Comics, which is way more boring than he thought it would be), taking up all his time. But without interning, he'll never get a foot in the door of the industry, and without that, he'll never get a job, and if he fails as an artist, he fails entirely - he fails himself, he fails his mom, and worst of all, he fails his grandmother Elena, who was the one who paid for him to go to art school in the first place. He'll screw up all that, and all because of being a lazy-ass.

It's where he's supposed to be and what he's supposed to be doing, but he's spending more and more time hiding from all his responsibilities. That just makes it worse, but he can't seem to care. It's also how he ends up in some club in the city with Mikey one night. Mikey's only nineteen, but it feels like he knows about every cool show and every cool venue and every cool person in the tri-state area.

Gerard's hanging out by the bar and drinking too many beers and not having much fun, but not having the worst time either. Mikey shows up out of the crowd every once in a while to get another vodka cranberry – he's only nineteen, but Gerard didn't even see him carded getting in. Because he knew the bouncer, because again: Mikey knows _everybody_.

The room gets darker as main band of the night comes on, and – Gerard doesn’t even know, the energy in the room _changes_. The front man – a guy who barely looks older than Mikey, with a dark, thick Mohawk – has so much stage presence that he just fucking captures the room the moment he starts singing. Gerard looks up from his beer for the first time that night, and he's just…mesmerized. It's not even that the lyrics are that great, or the song is that perfect, it's just that this guy has amazing energy, and his eyes are bright and hot and focused, and he's singing his fucking heart out up there, pouring it out into the crowd.

Which – Gerard blinks and refocuses on the crowd – they're surging forward, the kids in the audience, and it's a mosh pit, sure, but these kids are focused _up_ , they're right there with this singer, and they're singing his words back to him. It's this loop of power and energy that Gerard feels like he feels the beating of his own heart.

After the show – he feels like he blinks and it's over – another band comes on and, yeah, it was _this_ band, _this_ guy, because the feel in the room totally changes back to your usual shitty rock show vibe. Mikey comes and finds Gerard and the two of them manage to catch the 2AM back to Jersey.

Gerard's quiet the whole way on the train, and Mikey spends the ride texting on his phone, but leaning his shoulder up steadily against Gerard, like he knows Gerard needs quiet, needs to think, but still, Mikey is there.

Gerard lets it percolate inside him the whole way home. He and Mikey plod their way from the train station, letting themselves in quietly and making their way up to their room. It's not until they're in bed, Gerard on his upper bunk, Mikey breathing quietly on the lower one, just like they've been since they were kids – it's not until then that Gerard asks the questions that have been running through him, through his brain and through his gut, since the club.

"Mikey."

"Mm."

"Did you feel that tonight, at the show? How amazing it was? The vibe?" Gerard is curled on his side on his bunk, his eyes open in the dark, still feeling the music pulse through him.

"Yeah. They're new, but they're gonna get signed like _that_." Mikey's quiet then, waiting.

Gerard holds his breath in the dark, and then lets it out slow. "Did you see how those kids responded to him? To the music? That was just –"

"Yeah." Mikey shifts a little on the lower bunk, sheets rustling. "I know what you mean."

"I want that," Gerard says softly. "I want to make a difference like that."

"You will." Mikey sounds sure of it, certain. "You're going to, Gerard."

Gerard pushes his face against the pillow, ignoring the sudden hot rush of tears in his eyes. Because he's not, not like this. That guy up there on stage? He _felt_ what he was doing. Gerard wants to feel like that. He wants to _do_ that.

"You know what?" Mikey's voice is muzzy, just this side of sleep. "It doesn't have to be art. You can do something different, if you wanted. You can sing, Gee. I've heard you. You're good."

Mikey had probably last heard Gerard sing when he was Peter Pan in the middle school play, but then, Mikey's always been on Gerard's side no matter what.

"I want to do that," Gerard says quietly into his pillow. "I – maybe. Maybe yeah."

Mikey's breathing falls quiet and steady below him. Gerard tugs his blankets up higher and shuts his eyes tight, and falls asleep with the music from tonight in his head.

***

Frank can't stop thinking about the hot guy he met at the art show. Mikey Way's brother, who's an artist. Frank thinks that's pretty cool, and he's been wanting to get a new tattoo, and hey, he can maybe use the tattoo thing as an excuse. So he calls up Mikey and chats for a little bit, and they plan to go see the Toll Booth Kings, who are playing in a tiny club in the city next weekend, and then Frank says without exactly thinking it through, "So, your brother's hot."

Mikey says, "Yeah, and?"

Frank blinks, because he expected, he didn't know, ribbing or something. So he says, "And he's an artist."

Mikey is quiet for a second, and says, "Gerard is a lot of things. Art is just one of the things he does."

"Yeah?" Frank says, and it hits him that he's super interested; that he wants to know about all the things Gerard is. But he sticks with the plan and says, "I wanted to see if he'd maybe come up with a design for my next tattoo."

He can practically hear Mikey roll his eyes. "Didn't you, like, _just get_ the pumpkin one on your back?"

"That was ages ago," Frank protests. Seriously, it's been almost two months. "Besides, I didn't say I was _getting_ one, just that I'm trying to _plan ahead_." That was totally an adult decision, the planning ahead thing.

Mikey gives him Gerard's number, and Frank is no good at patience, so he hangs up from Mikey, waits ten seconds, then immediately calls Gerard. The most embarrassing part is that Mikey is the one who picks up, because Gerard apparently left his phone in their room. Mikey is outright laughing at Frank when he picks up – he doesn't even say hi, just giggles a lot and then Frank hears him clomping down some stairs, and yelling, "Gee, you forgot your _phone_ again."

"Hello?" Gerard says distractedly a minute later, and Frank goes, "Hey!" without thinking about it.

"…hey," Gerard says back, clearly having no fucking clue who he's talking to.

"It's Frank," Frank says quickly. "You – I met you at the art show?" Fuck, Gerard probably goes to a lot of art shows. "You liked my tattoos."

Then he hits himself on the forehead, he hopes quietly, because hi, lamest phone call ever.

But Gerard sucks in a breath loud enough that Frank hears it over the cell. "Yeah," he says. "I – yeah, Frank, hi. I liked your tattoos. I did. I can't handle needles, they freak me the fuck out, but you have some really sweet art going on there."

So maybe Frank isn't the lamest participant in this conversation. That makes him feel happy all over. "Cool – thanks. You don't like needles? I love it."

"Gah. No. I – gah, I can't even think about it."

Frank grins – it's almost like he can _hear_ Gerard shudder over the phone. "I don't know, I like the part about getting them almost as much as having them, you know? It's a whole – process, like, a thing."

"Like a ritual," Gerard says. "A rite."

"Exactly." Frank can't stop grinning into the phone. "So, uhm. Are you busy?"

"Nah, I'm just in my studio, trying to finish this project." Frank hears the click of a lighter and the sound of Gerard sucking in smoke. It shouldn't make his dick twitch, but it does. He's fumbling his own cigarettes out of his pocket before he even thinks about it.

"Man, you have a studio of your own? At your house? That rocks." Frank loves that idea. Frank _pines_ for, like, not an art studio, but even a soundproofed basement where he could do his own thing, make music, in his own space. "I'd love that. I mean, for music, for me – I'm not an art guy. My mom would never go for it – she hates when I play guitar, even in my room."

"You play?" Gerard asks.

"Yeah, I mean, a little. I don't have a lot of time to do it, but my buddy Ray – he's older, he lives in the city? – he shows me chords and stuff, works with me when I get the chance to go hang out." Frank tries to stop talking, but he sort of _can't_. "Ray is _really_ fucking good. He's awesome." Frank makes a huge effort and gets back on track. "So. Yeah. Your studio sounds cool."

"Ray sounds cool, too." There's a crackle on the line as Gerard exhales smoke into the phone and Frank takes a drag on his own cigarette. "And having a place to work is cool, it really is." Only – Gerard sounds, like, bummed or something. "Hey, so, why'd you call?" he asks abruptly, and Frank feels himself fucking blushing like a kid.

"I just –" _Thought you were hot! Want to blow you!_ his brain not-so-helpfully supplies. "Wanted to ask you – I mean, because you sort of seemed interested, or whatever, and I liked that picture you had at the gallery, and I was just thinking that – I don't know many artists, and you are one, so maybe you might be able to give me some ideas for my next tattoo? Or something," Frank ends nervously. He sounds like a crazy person even to his own ears.

"Oh, man, that would be so totally cool!" Gerard says immediately, like Frank is, in fact, not a crazy person. "I would love that."

"You're not too busy or anything?" Frank says.

"Nah, not at all – well, I mean, yeah, but I need a fucking break from this project." Gerard sighs. "It'll get done, but I've sort of drawn myself into a corner here, and anything to get my mind off of it sounds awesome."

"Great," Frank says happily. He sounds like a dork. He _is_ a dork. He doesn’t care. He just, like, commissioned an actual artist to draw him a tattoo design.

"But, uh, hey," Gerard says. "It sort of really matters, like, where it's going to go? And how it's gonna look with your other pieces?"

"Oh," Frank says. "I guess?" He totally doesn't plan ahead with his tattoos, and they really kind of don't go together. He's not _against_ the idea, his brain just doesn't work like that.

"So you should come over." Gerard pauses. "So we can figure that out." He sucks in some more smoke and lets it out into the phone, and Frank closes his eyes, because wow, wow, okay, smoke exhalation, kink he didn't know he had. "Or whatever," Gerard says, and he sounds nervous, maybe because Frank hasn't said anything.

"Yes." Frank swallows and tries to sound normal. "Yeah, yes, that'd be cool. Whenever."

"Now?" Gerard says tentatively. "I mean, if you want?"

"I want," Frank says like a doofus. "I mean." He coughs. "Yeah, sure, I can borrow my mom's car."

"Cool," Gerard says happily, and makes sure Frank has the address. They hang up and Frank has to sort of circle himself around his room four or five or six times like an excited puppy to work out all the jitters he's having. Gerard is going to work on a tattoo for him. That's _all_. It's pretty cool, to have an honest-to-god artist work on a tattoo for a guy like Frank, but still, that's all there is to it, and Frank needs to keep that in mind so he doesn't make a fool of himself when he goes over there.

He's cool. It's cool. He'll wait a half hour and then head over so he doesn't look too anxious. Right. Exactly. He lies down on his bed, and tucks his hands behind his head and looks at the ceiling for a while.

He makes it six minutes before he's out the door. Close enough.

***

Gerard sits there looking at the phone in his hand for a handful of seconds after he hangs up. He does need to sort of take a look at the canvas he's going to be working with before he starts sketching. It's part of his process.

But mostly, if he's being honest with himself, he just wants to see Frank again. He wants an excuse to look at the rest of his tattoos. Close-up. He really, really wants to see the ones he glimpsed on Frank's stomach. It's been distracting him more than a little, thinking about what they might be, and what they might look like, and what might be happening that Frank would be okay with showing them to Gerard.

He might be getting a little bit turned on just thinking about it.

He tosses the phone to one side and heads half-heartedly over to stare at the project he's supposed to be working on – it's a multi-media piece, on stretched canvas, sort of huge, and it's this abstract rendition of one of his favorite buildings downtown. He likes it a lot, so far, but he's having a hard time working on it, because he doesn't want to fuck it up.

When Mikey clatters down the stairs, Gerard looks up immediately.

Mikey peers at him through dirty glasses. "You look happy," he says, a little suspicious.

"I'm not," Gerard says hastily, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Mm." Mikey starts poking through the piles on the floor near the couch.

"Frank's coming over," Gerard offers.

Mikey slants him a look from behind his glasses. "Uh-huh."

"It’s not like that!" Gerard chews on his lip, watching as Mikey shrugs and goes back to looking through the piles. He emerges with Gerard's Zeppelin t-shirt that really hasn't fit Gerard since ninth grade and pulls off his own shirt, shrugs it on (it was far enough down in the pile that it probably has reverted back to mostly cleanish, at least according to Gerard's composting method of laundry).

Mikey's glasses have slid down his nose and the shirt is a little too small on him, and his hair is messier than it was before. He pushes his glasses up with the back of his hand. "So it’s not like a date." He's watching Gerard, waiting.

Gerard thinks for a second. "It's maybe kind of like a date. If the date was in my basement. And we weren't almost out of vodka."

Mikey's looking in the big square mirror hung crookedly on the wall near Gerard's desk, doing something with his hair that only serves to make it look just as messy, only at different angles. Mikey's looking at him from the mirror, and Gerard changes his frown to a terrible grimace that makes Mikey almost grin. "There's a half-full bottle up in the bedroom. You can take it. I'll get more tonight."

"You're the best, Mikey."

"I am. So." Mikey puts on a denim jacket over the t-shirt, and pushes his glasses up again. "Now it's like a date."

"I guess." Gerard thinks about it. "Or, it would be, if Frank knew it was a date."

Mikey pauses at the foot of the stairs and actually does grin. "Frank knows it's a date, Gee," he says. "The only person confused here is you."

"Par for the fucking course," Gerard calls after him as he heads up the stairs.

***

Hanging out at Gerard's house is awesome and fun, and easy, like, right away. The knot in Frank's stomach eases up right after Gerard greets him at the door, and takes him down to the basement like it's normal. "It's my studio, or whatever, down here," he says back over his shoulder as Frank follows him down the basement stairs.

"So cool to have your own space." Frank thinks that's completely awesome. Frank would love to be able to do that – to escape and make music whenever he wanted, and no one would be bugging him about school or homework or wearing a tie. Like when he manages to get over to Ray's for a lesson or two.

"Yeah." Gerard stumbles a little bit, because he's lighting a cigarette as he's going down the stairs. "Does your friend in the city have a studio to play in?"

"Nah," Frank says. "He's got an apartment, though, totally jammed with all his equipment. More than what I've got, at least."

Frank and Gerard get downstairs and sort of stand there gazing around together at the awesome chaos that is Gerard's studio. He has a slanted artist's desk, surrounded by a whole lot of lamps with different bulbs and shades and all, tilted haphazardly towards the desk, apparently to make up for the complete lack of natural light down here. There's a couch crammed at one end of the room, beat-up and huge, and books and pens and paper and trash and clothes and CDs and crap absolutely _everywhere_.

It's crazy and cluttered and trying to get anything done in a mess like this would make Frank's head hurt, but Gerard is looking around with a shrug and a half-smile. "I guess it's a little crazy down here right now," he says, running one hand through his hair, "but whatever. I can't get going without a little bit of clutter around me."

"A little bit of clutter, huh." Frank steps carefully through the mess on the floor to go look at one of the half-finished pieces Gerard has pinned to the wall by a bookcase. It looks like some sort of zombie apocalypse, and Frank inches closer, going up on his toes as he tries to see all the details in it.

"I need to finish that at some point," Gerard says over Frank's shoulder. He's pretty close behind him, and Frank jumps, but only a little.

"Is it for school?" Frank asks.

Gerard shakes his head. His hair is in his face a little, and it's pretty dirty – Frank can tell from here. He shouldn't find that endearing, and he knows that, but he _does_.

"No, it's not – I don’t do stuff like that for school." Gerard grins, quick and bright, pushing a coffee mug into Frank's hand. "It makes the professors look at me funny. I have, like, assignments. And stuff."

"Right." Frank peers into the coffee mug Gerard handed him. It has about a half-inch of a clear liquid in it, and Frank looks up at Gerard.

Gerard shrugs. "Vodka. I'm sorry, I suck at having mixers." He downs his own mug like a fucking pro, and looks at Frank like it's normal to be doing vodka shots at four in the afternoon on a Friday when you're a senior in high school (though maybe, Frank thinks, there might not actually be a better time to do it).

Frank downs his, and has to gasp for a while, because oh man, but Gerard just grins and pats his back, and pours him another shot. "So, what are you thinking for your tattoo?" he asks as Frank sits down and pulls out a cigarette – might as well go whole-hog on the juvenile delinquency theme of the afternoon.

"Well." Frank pats himself down, looking for his lighter. "I don't know, I don't actually have a theme going, yet – they're mostly individual pieces, you know?"

Gerard leans back on the couch to fumble his own lighter out of the pocket of his jeans and tosses it to Frank. "Can I see the ones you have?"

Frank nods, and lights his smoke before rolling up his sleeve (he's in a dorky dress shirt, because he never got changed after school) so Gerard can see the chainsaw that wraps around his upper arm. Gerard leans in super close, and his hair smells like smoke and his hand is rough and warm on Frank's skin as he says, "Sorry, can I?" sort of poised to turn Frank's arm.

"Sure," Frank says. It comes out all rough, and he has to take a breath and swallow before he can say again, "Sure."

Gerard tilts his arm, squinting at it, the cigarette in his mouth letting smoke drift up in front of his eyes.

Then he flips on the lamp clipped to the bookcase next to the couch and tilts it towards Frank's arm. His eyes are dark and intense, and he's humming under his breath like he's not even aware that he's doing it.

Frank is kind of holding his breath and he lets it out as quietly as he can, only to have to suck it back in when Gerard lifts his head a little – he's sitting pretty close to Frank now, and Jesus Christ, Frank knows he's staring but he can't _stop_. Gerard's eyes are fucking gorgeous, like, grey-green and intense, and his mouth is sort of wonky, and Frank wants to lick it where it pulls to one side when Gerard speaks.

"What are the other ones?" Gerard says, and his voice sounds totally normal, like he doesn't know that Frank can't concentrate on anything except for Gerard's fingers, hot against his skin. He's sitting so close to Frank, and Frank knows he's staring, but he can't stop. He's fucking fixated – all he wants to do in his life is to bite Gerard's crooked lip.

He takes a drag on his cigarette so that he can do something, anything, other than look at Gerard's mouth. "There's this," he says, and pulls up his other sleeve to show Gerard the anchor tattoo on his other arm.

"That's awesome," Gerard says, looking closely at it. "There's a huge amount of history with tattoos and anchors."

"I know," Frank says, full of glee, because no one seems to get that – they think he's just being derivative. "And, okay, there's this one." He turns, first, and then realizes that there's no way to show the pumpkin to Gerard without unbuttoning his shirt, so he undoes the first four buttons quickly. He shrugs his shoulders as Gerard tugs the shirt down a little so he can see the pumpkin with the maniacal grin Frank has in the middle of his back, up high.

"That's _so_ awesome," Gerard says admiringly.

"My birthday is on Halloween, so –" Frank shrugs, but inside, he's all heart-pounding and just, like, _happy_.

"Oh, man, really? How fucking cool is that?"

"Totally cool." Frank's blushing so hard his face is on fire, but Gerard's looking pretty pink, too, so he's not going to worry too much about it.

He turns around again, and Gerard is sitting close beside him on the couch, and huh, he's _really_ pink, the color high in his cheeks, as he says, quickly, "What about, uh." Then he shuts himself up by shoving his cigarette into his mouth and taking a long drag, holding the smoke so long he practically chokes on it when he lets it out.

"What?" Frank asks, curious.

"Nothing," Gerard says, and never mind pink, he is bright fucking red, totally flushed and so completely adorable Frank can't even take it. "I just – I mean –" Gerard looks like he wants to stab himself in the face, but his mouth is clearly beyond his control as he stutters out, "What about the ones on your stomach? I mean." He closes his eyes tightly for a second. "Not that I –"

Ha, Frank thinks, and then, softly, because he really can't help himself, "Ha," he says, out loud, but gentle, like, not even teasing, just saying. Because Gerard had been looking. Gerard had been wondering. And Frank has always loved his stomach tattoos, but now he loves them even more.

He waits, watching, until Gerard blinks his eyes open and looks at Frank. Then Frank sticks his cigarette in his mouth and gets up so he can lift up his shirt, holding the tails up out of the way so Gerard can see the dark outlines of the two swallows he has, one on either side of his belly button.

"Oh." Gerard's voice comes out like he's smoked two packs. "Oh," he says again, and then he just – slides to his knees in front of Frank. His eyes are completely fixed on the swallows, and Frank's hands tighten where he's holding his shirt up against his chest. It had been half unbuttoned anyway; it would have been easier just to take it off. Now he's stuck holding it up awkwardly as Gerard – oh Jesus God – kneels there in front of him. He lifts one hand and then freezes, looking up at Frank. "Can I?" he asks again, cautiously.

"Yes." Frank fumbles the cigarette out of his mouth and drops it in the ashtray on the table. He wishes the bottle of vodka wasn't sitting so far away right now, because he could really fucking use another shot. "Yeah, yes, you –" He bites his tongue, hard, before he says anything stupid.

Gerard bites his lip, and nods, and blows his dirty bangs out of his face as he lifts both hands now and traces them delicately, one on each side, over the wings and heads of the swallows.

""Fuck," Frank says, and it comes out forced, because he had, was not, in no way had planned to say anything at all. But Gerard's gentle touch sends a shudder all the way up his spine, because Gerard is _on his knees_ in front of Frank. Frank has to close his eyes, because if he doesn't, he doesn't trust himself to not fucking – he doesn't even _know_. Shove Gerard to the floor. Climb on top of him.

His own face has to be bright flaming red, from how hot it feels to him. He'fors still wearing his dorky school dress pants, and Gerard's kneeling in front of him, and Frank is _only one man_. He's getting hard, and there is not one fucking thing he can do about it, and Gerard's face is _right there_.

Gerard presses his palms over each of the swallows, his hands hot and slightly sweaty against Frank's skin. Frank blinks his eyes open, and he thinks every single filthy thought he has going through his brain must be completely clear on his stupid face. He thinks he might literally burst into flames of sheer embarrassment.

But all Gerard does is say, simply, "They're gorgeous, Frankie."

Which is sweet and awesome and Frank's heart feels ready to explode and all he can think, wildly, is how he really, really wants to come in Gerard's mouth.

What he says, however, is, "Thank you." If it comes out rough, well, there's nothing he can do about that.

Gerard stays there on his knees, and he's just _looking_ at Frank, and Frank really and truly one hundred percent feels like he's going to _die_ if something doesn't happen here. He feels, like, pinioned in place, like he's frozen there, like _all he can do_ is wait. Gerard still has his hands on him, and Frank is completely hard in his pants, like, _inches_ from Gerard's face, oh god.

Then Gerard blinks, shakes his head like he's coming back to himself, and pushes himself to his feet. He turns his back on Frank and walks over to his work desk, fishing around amid the scraps of paper and various pens to dig out a pack of cigarettes. He lights one, still with his back to Frank, who can't quite move or maybe breathe yet. Frank is still hard as a fucking rock, from having Gerard _on his knees_ in front of him. Frank has no blood flow to his _brain_.

"So." Gerard's voice comes out too bright, too forced. He coughs, and pours a couple of shots of vodka into the coffee cups they were using earlier. He turns, finally, to hand one to Frank, and his face is flushed, maybe, a little, and he won't quite meet Frank's eyes. "I can – yeah, I can draw you something. Just. I mean. Where do you want it?"

Frank has to seriously wait a handful of seconds to even process words again. Tattoo. Right. Okay. "I don't know, I mean –" He closes his eyes for a second, because looking at Gerard feels like _too much_ right now. "I have a lot of real estate right now, but I kind of want it somewhere visible, you know?"

Gerard tilts his head a little, waiting.

"Like, on my hand, I was thinking. Or my wrist." Frank can't stop thinking about Gerard on his knees. He is in serious, serious trouble now.

"Really?" Gerard sounds curious. "I thought –"

"What?" Frank asks.

"I don't know." Gerard scratches his fingers through his hair, taking another drag on his cigarette. "You're so young. Getting a really visible tattoo like that can make the job search, you know. Harder."

Young. _Young_. Frank is _so over_ being young. "Eighteen isn't that young," he says, and Gerard's lips twitch in a way that make Frank feel even younger. "I mean, I know it _is_ , but –" Fuck. He spreads his hands. "I am who I am. The sooner people know that, the better."

"Right," Gerard says softly. He's leaning back against his desk, arms crossed, the smoke from the cigarette in his hand curling up around him like he's someone from a black-and-white movie. "No, I get that." He's quiet, then, watching Frank on the couch. "What are you looking for?" he asks. "What kind of piece?"

"I'm not – I don't know." Frank feels stupid, but he really _doesn’t_ know – he just wants another tattoo and he wants it to come from Gerard. "I want it to be serious, you know? Not a logo or anything like that – even though I love what I have – I just want something new. Something different. I – trust you."

Gerard tilts his head a little, watching Frank. "Are you sure?" he says softly.

"Yeah," Frank says, matching his tone. "Yeah, I do." Frank feels a little bit drunk from the vodka, and a little bit dizzy from all the smoke in the room, and he's still so, so turned on, and god, he's going to do something stupid, and soon, if he doesn't get out of here. "I – should go," he says, even though all he wants to do is pretty much stay here in Gerard's basement forever. "I have a ton of homework to do."

"Me too." Gerard drops his head so his bangs fall in front of his eyes. "But, hey, listen," he says, quickly. "I can make time for this, you know? I mean, like I said, sometimes it's good to have a side project. It helps." He looks up at Frank through his eyelashes, and Frank can't even take it, he wants Gerard so fucking badly.

"Yeah," he says. "I mean, yeah. That would be – awesome. If you have time."

"I have time," Gerard says.

"Cool." More than cool. Beyond cool. Frank needs to chill, here.

"Do you want to maybe come over on, like, Tuesday?" Gerard says. "I have a thing due Monday, but I'm home all day Tuesday and can work on it, and I don't know, if you come over, I might have some preliminary sketches to show you?"

"Yes," Frank says, almost before Gerard is done talking. "Yes, that, yes, okay." Oh jeez. What a dork. "Okay. Cool." He claps his hands against his thighs like he's his grandfather or something. "I gotta go."

"Right." Gerard peers down into his empty coffee cup like some more vodka might magically appear. "Okay. I'll see you Tuesday."

"Good luck with your projects!" Frank says way too brightly, getting up from the couch and tugging the tails of his uniform shirt down over the front of his pants. "Tell Mikey I said hi."

"I will." Gerard looks up at him with a smile. "He really likes you," he offers. "He told me you were cool."

Frank laughs. "He was bullshitting you."

Gerard's smile turns into a grin. "No, he wasn't."

Frank grins back, then ducks his head and jogs up the stairs. He lets himself out, and walks down the street to his car, grinning so fucking wide in this completely uncontrollable way. He is such a dork, and he knows it, and he doesn't even care. He had two shots of vodka and way too many cigarettes, but that's not what's making him dizzy. Still, he starts his car and puts on the Bouncing Souls really loud, and sits there for a while, his head tilted back against the seat and his fingers drumming out the beat on his steering wheel, till he feels together enough to steer himself very carefully home.

***

Gerard hates his internship. He loves drawing. He loves comics. He motherfucking hates his internship at DC. He thinks that maybe this artist thing is more about making copies and tracing someone else's work or doing someone else's design than it is about creating. He thinks, as he stands there making one of approximately a billion copies that his supervisor (not even his boss. He doesn't even _know_ his boss. It's his boss’s underlings that have him do this shit because they don’t want to do it themselves) asked for (double-sided, stapled, sorted, kill him, please), that if he could talk to Elena – if Elena was still alive - he'd be able to find the goddamn words to explain what he's feeling here.

It's like he's never going to crawl out of this, never going to be more than someone's minion. He's never going to make a difference, never going to _affect_ people. Everyone keeps telling him he needs to start at the bottom, work his way up. He thinks, as the printer jams for the third time, that he's going to lose his mind if he has to work his way up in this business. He's not this person. He's not this guy.

He kicks the copier a little, and leaves it, goes out for a smoke break without telling anyone. He leans against the wall in the alley next to the DC offices, and stares at the sliver of sky up above, humming under his breath and kicking at the cement under his feet with one booted foot. It's a kicking-things sort of day.

He wants…something different. Not this. He feels tied up and tied in and wrung out and Elena is gone and he's three-quarters done with school, and this is going to be his life forever and he should just suck it up and let the corporate world of art suck him in and stop expecting so much.

He lights a second cigarette off of his first and doesn't look at his phone to see how long he's been out here. He wants _more_ than this. Frank looks at him like he's everything in the world, like he's the coolest guy Frank's ever seen. Gerard wants to be able to do something to live up to that. Frank is – Gerard doesn't even know. The way Frank looks at him, it makes Gerard want to spill his guts, makes him want to tell Frank all the stuff he doesn't even tell Mikey, tell him everything about how scared he is, how fucked up he is, how fucking lost he is and how he isn't even sure there's a way out.

He finishes his second cigarette and grinds it out under his boot, and leans his head back against the smooth granite of the building, looking up and up, squinting until all he can see is grey clouds and building-tops.

***

Tuesday takes forever to get there. Frank spends the weekend half-heartedly working on his final project for Business Ethics, but he goes into the city to see Ray on Saturday night, and they sit around smoking cigarettes and messing around with their guitars. Frank really likes Ray – he's ridiculously patient and doesn't seem to mind spending his Saturday night coaching Frank on chords. Maybe that means Ray's a dork. Frank doesn't mind. He's kind of a dork himself.

He gets home late, and Sunday he sleeps in until his mom comes into his room and pulls the shades up real fast so they slap and spin and pour way-too-bright fucking sunlight into the room. So Frank pretty much has to get up, and he does, and the day drags by, and he can't stop thinking about Gerard's basement studio, and Gerard's zombie apocalypse, and Gerard's dirty hair, and Gerard's mouth.

Monday is the day from hell. Frank stayed up too late playing World of Warcraft on his laptop (…probably not the use his mom intended for it when she gave it to him for his birthday), and wakes up late for school. He races through his shower and runs out with his hair still wet and his tie undone, his backpack banging against him as he runs for the late bus. He's late for homeroom, and his bitch of a homeroom teacher tells him he's got detention, but it's his Business Ethics teacher who's running it that day, and he charms his way out of it, in what he considers a really remarkable act of irony. He gets home, does most of his homework, and even gets dinner going before his mom gets home, which earns him both points and suspicious looks.

He's worn out after dinner, and his mom lets him out of doing the dishes due to his cooking, so he escapes upstairs, finishes his Econ. paper pretty half-assedly, but hey, at least he's got it ready to pass in, and climbs into bed. It's, like, eight-thirty and he's pathetic, but he's fucking _tired_ , and he knows his body well enough to not push things. Frank getting tired equals Frank getting sick, and Frank so does not need that right now.

He lies there for a few minutes with his cell phone in his hands, turning it over and over against his chest. He slides it open and scrolls down to Gerard's number, even, but slides it abruptly closed again. Lame, lame, lame. He's seeing him tomorrow night. It's fine. He can wait, and besides, it's just about his tattoo plan. And Frank needs to chill the fuck out.

He turns over, shuts off his bedside lamp, and buries his face in his pillow for about two minutes, listening to his heart beating in his ears and thinking about how easily Gerard went down on his knees for Frank in his basement. He thinks about how warm Gerard's hands were against his skin when he pushed Frank's shirt up and pressed them against the swallows on Frank's stomach.

Frank's hard before he can even really register it. He rolls over onto his back and slides his hand into his shorts. He's thinking about Gerard's face; he's thinking about Gerard's mouth. He's trying to make it last, get it out of his system, maybe, with a long and thorough jerk-off session, but he was already halfway there at the memory of Gerard dropping to his knees. He lasts about two minutes – and that's with biting his lip and twisting his face into his pillow, and trying to hold back – before he's gasping and coming hot all over his fist, thinking about thrusting into Gerard's mouth.

The orgasm leaves him _wrung out_ \- he's shaking, afterwards, it was so fucking intense – and he lies there, blinking up into the darkness, so blissed out by it that he can't even feel bad for being so fucking crazy over someone he's met exactly twice. He falls asleep with his hand still in his messy shorts and doesn't wake up at all until the alarm goes off the next morning.

Tuesday is marginally better than Monday, but _never-ending_. He makes it through his day at school without incident, but he remembers pretty much _none_ of it. Jesus, three more months of this bullshit, and then further bullshit that is called _business school_ , and it makes him want to cry when he thinks about it, or throw things. So he tries _not_ to think about it, and spends probably way too much of the day thinking about Gerard's mouth, and the things he wants to do to it.

By the time the final bell rings, he's so fucking done he can't even front. He races home and remembers to change this time, pulling on his favorite jeans and a Danzig shirt. He jumps in his car and heads over to the Way's, and gets there probably way too much on the early side, but the last four days have him so wound up he doesn't even care, he just wants to see Gerard's _face_.

He parks just down the block and jogs up the steps to the front door, ringing the doorbell and bouncing up on his toes a little, trying to get it out of his system. The door swings open just as he's trying to decide if he should ring again, or text Gerard to tell him he's outside, and – it's Mikey, looking amused in that way where there's no real expression on his face, but Frank can just _tell_.

"Shut the fuck up," he says before Mikey can say anything.

"Yes?" Mikey slouches in the doorway, like he could possibly block it with his skinny little frame. "Can I help you, sir?"

"I said shut it," Frank says again, firmly, and pushes in past Mikey.

"Oh, do you want to come in?" Mikey shuts the door behind him, then leans against it, a half-grin on his face. Frank heads for the basement steps, knowing his face is very, very red, and determined not to look back.

"What, you didn't come to see _me_?" Mikey calls after him, a giggle in his voice.

"Shut it," Frank yells back, again, over his shoulder and stomps his way down the basement steps, muttering about kid brothers, even though Mikey is a year older than Frank, and already half-heartedly going to community college.

Even after all that ruckus, when Frank stumbles to a stop at the foot of the stairs, Gerard doesn't look up from his desk, deeply involved in something he's drawing with charcoal on a piece of paper that is the size of this whole drafting desk. He's been working on it for a while, clearly – he's got charcoal on his forehead, and streaked across his cheek, and there's a coffee mug on its side next to his foot, the remains of its contents staining the rug. He's completely wrapped up in his work, and Frank is holding his breath a little. He should make his presence known, maybe, but he also doesn't want to interrupt Gerard's _process_ , so he kind of stands there with one foot on the stairs and one foot on the carpet, holding on to one of the struts leading down the staircase and just watches.

Gerard at work is kind of mesmerizing. He's so _in_ it. He's focused and intense and he keeps biting his lip a little, then licking it, and Frank can't take his eyes off of him. Frank doesn't have the right angle to see what Gerard's actually working on, but he's clearly caught up in it, and Frank just – he wants to see that, wants to see what has Gerard's focus like that.

He eases forward a little, just to try to get a glimpse, but his hip brushes a pile of books stacked on an old dresser with a marble top parked next to the staircase. They topple over with enough of a crash to get even Gerard to look up, his eyes distracted and hazy, his eyebrows still drawn down, looking first at the books scattered across the floor, and then up at Frank.

"…hey," Frank says, dropping down to scoop up the books.

"Hey." Gerard's distracted, watching, but when Frank looks up at him, the books piled haphazardly in front of him, Gerard's eyes come into focus and his face _lights up_. " _Hey_ ," he says, all tuned-in and happy.

Frank feels this fucking burst of heat light up in his chest. He stays there crouched stupidly on the floor with the books in front of him, just looking up at Gerard for way too long.

"Oh," Gerard says, when Frank finally manages to pull his gaze away and start to lever himself off the ground with the giant stack of books in his arms, "You don't have to –"

The books topple out of Frank's arms, spreading across the floor again, and Gerard giggles a little. "Just leave them, seriously. They're going to end up there anyway, probably." He drags a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in even more crazy directions than it already was.

Frank can't – he actually, really _cannot_ – leave the books scattered across the floor, but he scoops them up quickly, and deposits them on the dresser again. Gerard has flicked off the lamp over his desk by then, and pulled another piece of paper down over whatever he had been working on. "I didn't realize it was so late," Gerard says apologetically."I got all caught up."

"No, I'm sorry I interrupted you. I'm – it's pretty early." Frank realizes it's probably only maybe four o'clock and that he is a total loser.

"It's cool." Gerard pushes away from the desk and goes to flop down on the couch. "I'm glad you're here. I wasn't sure if you'd come." He says it easy, not passive aggressive or weird or like he's even aware of how open it leaves him.

Something eases up in Frank's chest, and he smiles at Gerard because he can't help it."Yeah, I mean – yeah, no, it's cool."

Frank's still feeling like a dork, so he heads over to look at Gerard's CDs, because he thinks that maybe if he lets himself go, he's going to end up climbing up on top of Gerard on the couch. He scans the CDs – he's pretty sure they're not in any order whatsoever – barely seeing them. He's just, like, hyper-aware of Gerard sitting on the couch behind him. It's ridiculous. _He's_ ridiculous. "Oh, hey, you like Black Flag? I like Black Flag!" He pushes up his t-shirt sleeve to show Gerard the tattoo on his right arm – one of his first ones – of the band logo.

"Oh, awesome!" Gerard leans forward to look.

"Thanks." Frank's cheeks are _burning_ , how is he such a _girl_ , seriously? He busies himself by taking the CD out of the case. "You mind if I put something on?"

"No, go for it," Gerard says, and Frank puts it into the boom box sitting on top of a bookcase, where "Die, Die My Darling" comes pouring out when he presses play.

"Misfits. Cool," Gerard says, watching Frank from the couch.

Frank sits down – next to, but not too near – Gerard, and he's worried, for a handful of seconds, that he's played out his social skills for the afternoon. But the music is really awesome, and when Gerard says, "God, I just fucking love that bass line," Frank can't help but burst out with, "Me, too!" and that leads into Frank spilling his fucking guts all over the place, because that's just how he rolls.

He talks about school – it just comes pouring out – and how crazy excited his mom is about him getting into college, and about how he actually _got in_ , early admission, but how it's business school, and even though he doesn't suck at the work, he hates it, he _hates_ it, he just – "I don’t know, it feels like my fucking soul is dying, and I'm only _eighteen_ , you know?"

Gerard nods, intently. "So, what do you want to do? Do you know?" He says it like he's genuinely curious. He's holding his cigarette up by his mouth, but poised, like he's forgotten it's there, as he's waiting for Frank's answer, the smoke curling up around his face.

"I – okay," Frank says. "Okay, there's just this – don't laugh," he warns.

"I wouldn't," Gerard says, serious.

"Guitar." It's like this huge whoosh of air rushed through a hole in Frank's heart as he says it. "I want to play. I mean, I do play, a little, my buddy Ray is teaching me, but there's not enough time and I don't even own a real guitar, you know, not a _good_ one, and my mom fucking hates it, but - but when I hold one in my hands, I just _know_." He runs out of air. "You know?" he says tentatively, looking over at Gerard.

"Yeah," Gerard says, faintly, looking serious and thoughtful, "Yeah, I fucking know." He takes a breath in through his nose, and says, "Tell me more about it, okay?" as he gets up and digs through the mess around his desk and pulls out another bottle of vodka.

***

Frank does. Frank tells him more about it over a shot of vodka, and then two, and Gerard and he get this rapport going that hits Frank in the gut like _nothing else_. Gerard _does_ get it, he totally gets it, and he listens to Frank, and talks to him about art school, and how, yeah, he's good at what he does, but it's draining his fucking soul, and it just makes Frank fucking hurt for him.

"God, Gerard, just – yeah." Frank finishes his last swallow of vodka and breathes hollowly around the burn in his throat. "Yeah." They sit quietly then – they've switched the music to Metallica, and they listen to "Until It Sleeps" in the background, and they've somehow moved closer together on the couch. It's been a while – the light coming in the slim window set high on the basement wall is the dim, orange light of a New Jersey sunset – and the silence isn't awkward or weird, it feels just like it's them, in it together.

Frank's looking at Gerard, just looking at him, can't even get himself together enough to pretend not to. His heart's beating a mile a minute. He just – he _wants_ him. He wants him on this deep and stupid level – with his heart and his soul and his dick. He wants him _so bad._

It's okay, though, that he's looking, because Gerard is peering down into the empty, dirty coffee cup that had held his vodka, like it contains the answers to life, the universe, and everything. It's almost like he's forgotten that Frank is there, and Frank is caught between being slightly annoyed that Gerard gets distracted from him that easily, and relieved that he gets these minutes to study Gerard without Gerard noticing. Gerard's hair curls around his ears, and his mouth is a little crooked, and Frank is just getting to notice the spot high on Gerard's cheek, right under his eye, that gets red when Gerard gets embarrassed, or flustered, or tipsy, when Gerard looks up at him all of a sudden.

Frank, caught staring, sits back in a not at all casual way, and coughs way too loud. He looks away, trying to distract from it, and catches sight of the alarm clock over by Gerard's desk. "Fuck." He pulls out his cell phone to double check, and fuck, _fuck_. "My curfew was half an hour ago." He fucking hates being a goddamn high school student. He gets up, his sneaker catching on the fabric of the couch in a way that makes him almost fall over. "I gotta go," he says, his whole brain saying _what? Wait! No!_ at him. "I – yeah. Sorry!"

"Oh." Gerard looks – crestfallen. Honestly and sincerely crestfallen, and who ever actually looks like that in real life? "Okay." He shifts forward on the couch, hands clasped between his knees, gazing up at Frank. "We didn’t really get to talk tattoos. I have some sketches, but – " He pauses, studying Frank. "I have some different thoughts now. Let me work on it a little more?"

"Oh," Frank says. Tattoos. Right. "Tattoos. Right. No, okay, that's cool, you have – ideas? I mean, thoughts? I mean –"

"Yeah," Gerard says, like he didn't even notice Frank's rambling. He looks up at him through his eyelashes, and Frank is going to actually, literally _die_ here, pretty soon. "Is that okay? I mean, you don't have to go with it, but let me just – you said you wanted it, like, on your hand or wrist or someplace like that. Let me just –"

He wraps his hand around Frank's wrist again, twisting it gently this way and that as he studies Frank's skin. He runs his hand lightly from Frank's wrist all the way to his bicep, and Frank bites his lip as a shudder runs through his entire fucking body.

"Okay," Gerard says finally, letting go of Frank's wrist.

"Okay," Frank echoes, his heart pounding stupidly hard.

"Let me work on it a little more, okay?" Gerard smiles happily up at him. "I think this might work. You don't have to go with it."

"I – no, that's cool." Frank swallows and trying to remember how to breathe normally.

"Cool." Gerard smiles again, and Frank has to get out of there before he swallows his _tongue_. "You'll come back? So I can show you?"

"Yeah," Frank says. "I will, yeah."

"Cool," Gerard says again, and Frank fucking hotfoots it out of there before he can make even more of a spectacle of himself than he already has.

"Give me a call, let me know how it goes, okay?" he says as he heads to the stairs, pausing just for a second at the bottom.

"Yeah," Gerard says softly from the couch. "Yeah, okay."

"Cool," Frank says – again! – stupid! – and jogs up the stairs and out into the night air.

***

Gerard stays on the couch for a while after Frank leaves. He leans over to grab the bottle of vodka and his sketchbook and he pours himself a double shot. He drinks it while he doodles a little bit, thinking about Frank's ink. He'd come up with a few sketches before, yeah, but none of them felt perfect. Talking to Frank tonight has his brain humming more along the right lines.

The anchor, the Black Flag logo, the chainsaw. It should be a mishmash, there's no theme, no cohesion, but man, he kind of loves it, loves that Frank is eighteen and already doing this, marking himself the way he wants to, regardless of anything anyone else says or thinks or expects.

Eighteen, man. It seems like a really fucking long time ago. Which is stupid, Gerard's only twenty-two, but sometimes twenty-two seems really fucking old. Time is slipping by and yeah, he's pushing forward, but he's just – he doesn't even know. He's getting this tense, anxious knot in his stomach even just thinking about school, and the project he's supposed to be working on, and having to get up and shower and put on clean clothes that make him look presentable and head off into the corporate world of his internship. It's supposed to be preparing him for a real job in the real world, the art world, and it's just not playing out the way Gerard had maybe thought it was going to.

It brings him around to thinking about Elena, again, and oh yeah, maybe eighteen isn't that far away after all, because he can remember talking to her about his plans, his dreams, and loving when she agreed with him, gave him her approval, her support, her belief that he was going to go somewhere and do something and not just be a punk who'd never get out of Jersey.

Gerard sketches aimlessly, just sort of noodling with some vague ideas. He ends up filling up pages with black inked sketches of Halloween landscapes – graveyards and ghosts – and take-offs of Misfits logos, and Frank, dark-eyed, his hair messy and his eyes huge; Frank, smoking a cigarette with his legs crossed and his elbow propped on his knee; Frank, grinning wide as he's sprawled back on the couch, buzzed and lazy.

Gerard shakes his head, takes another slug of vodka, flips to a clean page. He should be working on his project; he should be getting ahead of the game. He wonders when Mikey's coming home tonight - Mikey met a boy at school last week, and he hasn't been home a lot since. It's good that he's made a friend; community college has little to no interest to Mikey, but it's not like he's doing a whole lot else with his time. There are only so many parties you can go to. Mikey just shakes his head when Gerard tries that thread of logic.

Gerard's hands move without him really thinking about it; the vodka helps with that, lets his awareness slide just enough that it's like he's creating without really being involved. He lets it happen, while he thinks about Frank being here, in his house, in his studio. Gerard doesn't bring a whole lot of people down here, but it seemed natural with Frank. Maybe it's that the tattoo is like a commission.

Maybe it's different than that.

He looks down at the page, shading in the eyes and the tears of blood he'd just drawn. He's drawn the Virgin Mary, kind of, or, well, it kind of reminds him of the sacred heart in a way. It's weird; it's more stylized than he usually draws, and he has no idea where it came from, and no idea why it feels so _right_ for Frank. It's also kind of huge. Maybe Frank was expecting something simpler, something that could blend.

Gerard holds the drawing of the lady out, studies the swords piercing her heart from either side. This isn't going to blend.

He bites his lip, and sets it aside, going back to his desk and halfheartedly poking at the half-finished drawings scattered across it. He spends a while hunting for his favorite pen, and when he can't find it, he spends a while longer smoking cigarettes and drinking vodka mixed with slightly flat Sprite. It should taste like a vodka tonic, is his reasoning, but it really, really doesn't.

He's still sitting slumped in his desk chair, sort of just doing nothing at all, when Mikey gets home from wherever he's been. He thumps down the stairs to the basement, making so much noise and treading so heavy you'd never know he was the skinny guy that he is. "Hey," he says, swaying a little unsteadily on his feet. A party, then, and Gerard checks the clock, because Mikey's never home early from any party at all.

It's only midnight, though, and Gerard looks at Mikey quizzically. "Did it suck?"

"What." Mikey flops down on the couch like his bones have all dissolved.

"The party," Gerard says, and Mikey looks at him, and shrugs, and reaches his hand out for the vodka by Gerard's feet. He doesn't make any move to get up or lean forward or anything, and the couch is about ten feet away from the desk chair. "Are you trying to use the force?" Gerard asks as he leans down to scoop up the vodka. He brings it over to Mikey on the couch, and sits down next to him, pushing his toes under Mikey's skinny thigh. Gerard's sock has a big hole around the toe, and his foot is cold.

Mikey takes a drink and shrugs again, slouching down so low on the couch as to be almost horizontal. He's got really long legs. Gerard is sort of stumpy next to Mikey. "How was your night?" Mikey lets his head roll against the back of the couch and looks at Gerard – no real expression, but the raised eyebrow is implied.

"Fine. It was - fine." Gerard watches Mikey take a sip. He's pretty drunk, but you'd never know it from listening to him. He never slurs like Gerard does. "Frank came over," Gerard says, and his face gets hot for no reason at all.

Mikey grins. "Oh."

"What?" Gerard says. "He just – came over. I'm working on his tattoo."

"I know," Mikey says. "You may have mentioned it. Or something."

Gerard digs his toes up into Mikey's thigh. "He's _your_ friend. I'm just helping him out."

"You're a giver." Mikey nods sagely.

"Shut it." Gerard sighs, fiddles with the hole in the thigh of his jeans. "He hates school."

"Yeah, and?" Mikey's eyes are half-shut as he looks at Gerard. "So do I. So do you. So does everyone."

"I know." Gerard reaches for the vodka and Mikey takes another unsteady sip and hands it to him. "Did you know he's going to business school next year?"

"Yeah," Mikey says. "His mom bought him a Macbook for his birthday to, like, help him out and get ready. He sort of hates it. Frank's not a computer guy."

"Frank's not a business school guy," Gerard says. "He wants a hand tattoo. Or – something on his arm, maybe." Gerard scratches his hand through his hair. "I don't know how well that would go over in an office."

Mikey shrugs one shoulder. "Not that good, probably. Did you draw him something?"

"After he left," Gerard says. "He left in a hurry, kind of. I don't know."

Mikey shifts a little on the couch. "He likes you, Gee."

"I don't know." Frank _had_ left in a hurry. Gerard had been in a weird drawing head-space, and he really liked Frank's tattoos. He thinks he maybe shouldn’t have been touching them. He remembers hearing people get weird about that. "I don't know, Mikey."

"He does." Mikey sounds sure of himself, and Mikey doesn't screw around with Gerard on these things. But. "He _does_ ," he says again, soft and drunk, putting his hand over Gerard's and squeezing. "Get out of your own way."

"Right," Gerard says miserably. Right. That was always the motherfucking problem, wasn't it? Elena had known that about him. She had given him the money, and the motivation, so he had no choice but to get out of his own way. Right.

"Show me what you drew for him." Mikey blinks and pushes himself up a little bit.

Gerard gets up and snags the drawing pad with the lady crying tears of blood. He'd sketched in a pile of skulls around her feet, the detail of the rest of her kind of distracting from them, so you kind of had to be paying attention to see it. The swords piercing her heart stick out to each side, looking like rays of light. He likes her.

Mikey looks at her over Gerard's shoulder, tucking his head against Gerard's and leaning heavily. His hair smells like cigarettes and pot. "That's kind of fucked up," he says slowly.

"I know." Gerard pokes in between the cushions of the couch for a pencil, and fixes the shading of the lady's robes a little bit.

"Frank's going to come in his pants over it," Mikey says in that same slow tone.

"You think?" Gerard says wistfully.

"Yeah." Mikey kisses Gerard's cheek real quick. "Yeah, I do."

***

Frank makes a huge effort and does not text Gerard the day after he sort of maybe ran out on him. He is actually made of _stone_ and doesn't call him the day after that, either. Frank wonders, sometimes, when he became such a girl.

He's actually on a roll of super self-control. He'd feel more proud of himself if it wasn’t for the fact that he has been getting hard on a pretty regular basis just thinking about Gerard holding onto his arm, turning it this way and that and studying it with his bangs falling forward over his furrowed brow. It makes Frank think about Gerard holding onto his wrists, tight. Tugging on them, holding them down against a bed while climbing on top of him and kissing him, and – yeah. Okay. Self-control, maybe not so much.

Frank hasn’t had this much unexpected wood since hitting puberty. He's a little out of control.

He breaks on the third day and texts Mikey – totally casual! Nothing at all about Gerard! – just _hey dude whats up show on Saturday downtown you in_.

Mikey texts back thirty seconds later. _yeah see you there ps omg just call him already jerkoff_

Frank frowns. Whatever. He was being totally chill. Cool, even. He lies back on his bed and toys with his phone, and thinks about Gerard down on his knees in front of him with his warm palms pressed against Frank's hips, covering the swallow tattoos and tracing the wings a little bit with the tips of his fingers. His eyes had been dark and focused, and Frank had been able to look down at him to his heart's content, and oh man, controlling his breathing had been hard, then, it had felt like he was hyperventilating, like there wasn't enough air in the room. It sort of feels like that now, too. It sort of feels like that every time he thinks of it, and he can smell the close air in Gerard's basement room, and it's like surround-sound flashback and god, he's half-hard just thinking about it and –

His phone buzzes loud and harsh in his hands and he jumps a fucking mile and a half. "Fuck fuck _fuck_." He fumbles the phone, almost drops it, before hitting the wrong button and skipping past the new text he'd just received. He scrolls back, and it's from Gerard. Fuck. Mikey had totally told Gerard about Frank texting him. There went three days worth of cool.

_maybe have a sketch for your tattoo_

Frank holds his breath for ten seconds while his heart beats wildly, and then texts back immediately. Fuck this waiting shit. _yay awesome when can I see it_.

He doesn't even care if it makes him sound lame. What. He likes tattoos.

His phone buzzes again. _tomorrow night?_

Frank maybe grins a little. Or a lot. _Yeah, cool. Your place?_

_you don't mind?_

Frank doesn't mind.

It's not even weird when he gets there, and that's maybe one of the things Frank likes about Gerard. Gerard is very accepting of weirdness, apparently. They're in Gerard's studio again, and it's like, a thing now, Frank thinks. Three times of hanging out equals maybe a thing. He likes it down here, even though it's beyond messy, and dirty, too. Frank likes the smell of paint and paper, and he likes the messiness of Gerard's discarded drawings scattered everywhere. Frank thinks this is maybe a little bit like what it's like inside Gerard's head.

"Fuck," Frank says, when Gerard shows him the sketch of the lady crying blood. "Oh _man_."

"You don't have to like her." Gerard scratches his head and gazes at Frank anxiously. "Seriously, you don't. It's not even what we talked about."

"It's not," Frank says. "It's _awesome_. It's beyond –" He gestures wildly, because there are _no words_. He didn't know what he had expected. Some kind of one-off piece, maybe, a quick sketch of a broken heart or something abstract – they had talked, yeah, but what Frank really wanted was just something unique, different, designed by Gerard. And he had _gotten_ it, wow. "Gerard, she is just so _fucking_ cool."

Gerard beams at him, and slides closer on the couch. "I was thinking," he says, "That you should put her here." He wraps his hand around Frank's wrist, and slides the other hand up over his forearm.

Frank bites his lip and doesn't gasp, but his stomach swoops and it's a close thing. Gerard's hands are really warm, and Frank has been thinking about them way, way too much this week. "Yeah?" he says, only a little shaky. "Like, where, specifically?"

"Well," Gerard says softly, looking at Frank with his hands still on his arm. "Like, she's way bigger than you were thinking, and I think she'll fill the whole forearm. Like, from here," Gerard draws a soft line with his thumb right under Frank's elbow. "To here," and he strokes his hand down the length of Frank's forearm to the wrist.

Frank can't breathe quite right. He can't remember how he's done it his whole life. It seems to take all of his concentration right now just to breathe in and out and not pant.

"I – yeah," he says, and okay, now his voice is shaky and he can't do anything at all the fuck about it, what with trying to breathe like a sane human being taking so much of his brain power. "I think that's awesome. I think she's fucking gorgeous. I think _you're_ –" He bites it back, swallowing the words so quick his throat hurts. He's such a fucking tool. He can't stop looking at Gerard there on the couch next to him. Gerard's hands are still on him, and he's looking at Frank all serious and, like, listening, like he's waiting to hear what Frank was going to say. And fuck it, _fuck_ it, seriously. "I think you're –" There's too much, and Frank was all ready to say it, but _gorgeous. Amazing. Talented. Fucking hot_ \- none of it was exactly what he wanted to say, and he just says it again, helplessly, "I think you're –"

Gerard bites his lip, watching Frank, and then he's pushing himself up and over, and he's half in Frank's lap, and he's kissing him like Frank holds all the air in the room. Which, god, Frank holds _none_ of the air in the room, he can't even breathe or think or do any fucking thing at all except dig his hands into Gerard's sides and kiss him back.

Nothing in Frank's life up 'til now has prepared him for this. He's made out with guys before, and some girls, and he's had his share of hook-ups, with groping and getting off and awkward next days in the cafeteria, but that's high school. This is _Gerard_. This is Mikey's older brother. This is Gerard, who's in art school. This is Gerard, who has his own studio, who gets his work shown at galleries. This is Gerard, who Frank has been thinking about _every day_ and now he's pretty much in Frank's _lap_.

Frank might die. He hopes not. But the worry is there.

"Fuck." Gerard pulls back finally, and Frank gasps in a breath, and both of them are panting into each other's faces. Gerard looks a little bit stunned. "Frank, listen, I just –"

"I know," Frank says, even though he doesn't, and he wants to kick himself, because he really really fucking wants to know how Gerard was going to end that sentence. Gerard looks at him and shakes his head helplessly, and then he leans in and they're kissing again. It's the best thing that’s ever happened in Frank's _life_ , and that includes Ray letting Frank play his Les Paul.

It's unbelievably hot, it's the hottest thing that's ever happened to him. Gerard's mouth is warm and soft, and tastes like smoke, and Frank wants to do this for the rest of his life. His fingers are digging into Gerard's hips, and he slides them up just enough to get them to the soft, warm skin of his waist. Gerard moans into his mouth, but doesn’t stop that intense kissing. They keep pulling away to drag in enough air to just keep going. Jesus Christ. Frank can't even _think_.

Gerard pulls back again, all the way this time, falling sideways onto the couch. His face is flushed and his mouth is wet and he's looking up at the ceiling and sucking in these deep breaths. "Okay," he says, his voice coming out rough and shaky. "Okay, so – okay."

Frank's leaning towards him, his whole body tilted forward without his even really being aware of it. His breath isn't coming right, and he's so fucking hard, and he just wants _more_. "I –" he says, and swallows, because his brain won't line up any words.

Then Gerard reaches up and tugs on Frank's shoulders, and Frank just climbs on top of him. He groans into Gerard's mouth, like, _way too loud_ , but he can't fucking help it, that's Gerard's hard-on up against Frank's. It feels fucking amazing, and Frank grabs onto Gerard's hips, dragging him closer, and he just can't stop _kissing_ him.

Gerard is talking, muttering feverishly against Frank's mouth, as he cups Frank's face with his hot hands, running his fingers into Frank's hair, Frank's stupid, uncool, Future Business Leaders of America hair. Gerard is tugging on it and Frank can't stop himself from groaning into Gerard's mouth.

Gerard keeps his fingers twisted in Frank's hair, and keeps talking endlessly as he kisses Frank, saying things like, "You're so –" and "I can't even –" and "This is so fucking dumb," and "Frankie," and "Frankie" and " _Frankie_."

Gerard is pressing up against him, harder, and harder, and oh fuck, oh fucking hell, Frank's brain has to come back online and put a stop to this, stop rocking down against Gerard, because he's going to come in his pants like the fucking teenager that he is, and he just – he wants –

Gerard yanks on his hair then, and fucking _whimpers_ into his mouth, shaking against him, his knees pressed up tight against Frank's hips.

Frank isn't one hundred percent sure, but he thinks _Gerard_ just came in his pants.

It's distracting enough that Frank is still somehow holding on, his fingers aching as they're wrapped in the sides of Gerard's hoodie.

"Oh my fucking god," Gerard says, blurred against Frank's lips. "That was just so fucking –" He shivers, and wriggles, and he doesn't even seem embarrassed by what just happened. He just takes a breath, and pushes, shoving Frank sideways against the couch, so he can tug his pants open quick-quick-quick, and push his hand down inside.

Frank gives a strangled, "Fuck," as Gerard wraps his hand around Frank's cock. Gerard is watching him intently, in a way that should be creepy, but is instead just really fucking _hot_. Gerard jerks him off just perfectly – quick and firm and stroking his thumb over the head of Frank's cock, and _watching_ him, his cheeks flushed, his eyes hot. Frank thrusts up hard into the circle of his fist and comes hard with a strangled shout.

Afterwards, it's not even weird. Frank zips up, after Gerard tosses him a clean-ish rag to wipe down with, and they lie there, sprawled together on the couch and smoke. Gerard doesn’t seem in any way inclined to clean up what has to be an uncomfortable mess in his pants, and Frank is really in trouble here, because he finds that endearing, too.

Gerard tilts his head back against the couch and pushes his hand through his own hair, his eyes wide and a little dazed. His skin is so pale that the flush shows up hot and red high in his cheeks and makes him look really fucking young. "You –" He shakes his head. "Okay," he says again. "So that happened."

Frank nods. "Yes. Yeah." He's grinning – he can't _help_ it, and Gerard grins back, and Frank is caught between getting turned on again and laughing, ends up giggling and falling against the back of the couch, letting his shoulder slide down until it's against Gerard's. He fucking tingles when he touches him, a shudder up and down his spine, like someone walked over his grave. Gerard's laughing, too, and it's easy and fun and Frank wants to lean against him, wants to climb on top of him, wants to kiss him, wants to stay in this basement for-fucking-ever.

Frank's still half-leaning on Gerard, and Gerard tilts them both forward enough that he can snag his cigarettes and lighter off of the beaten-up coffee table. Frank's hand is resting against Gerard's thigh, and Gerard doesn't shift away. And even though Gerard just got off in his _lap_ , that right there is enough to give Frank shivers down his spine again. It feels fucking intimate, fucking special, and oh god, he is such a fucking girl. He's going to want to hold _hands_ next or something stupid like that.

Gerard takes a deep drag of his cigarette, and shoots Frank a sideways smile, and says, "So, listen, I think that what would really be awesome would be –" And he goes off on a long dialogue on what he wants to draw for Frank's next tattoo. It's a fucking awesome idea – Gerard is rambling about appropriating religious symbolism and creating something personal with it and Frank doesn't get even half of what he's saying, but it sounds _great_. Midway through what he calls _articulating his vision_ , Gerard wraps his fingers around Frank's, and their hands slide together like they fit. Frank just sits there slumped on the couch, watching Gerard gesture with one hand as he talks, while he holds Frank's hand with the other.

Frank thinks to himself, happily, _I am so totally fucked_.

***

Frank cannot fucking wait to get the piece Gerard created for him. He wants it immediately; he wants it _yesterday_. He makes an appointment with at the studio downtown – he doesn't have a lot of cash, so he goes to the one where they give you a deal if you work with an apprentice instead of a licensed artist. It can be kind of a risk, but Frank trusts Kelly, the artist who does the training, and Joe did his last piece, which was the swallows on his belly, and those came out pretty damn good. He's willing to take a risk, for the price.

He brings the picture in to show to Kelly a few days before, and even he whistles appreciatively as he studies it.

Frank spends a night cajoling Gerard into coming with him to the studio."It's your _art_ ," he said, "Being permanently etched into my skin."

Gerard turns a little pale. "I really don't like needles. Like. _Really_."

Frank hurries past the whole needles part. "It'll be on me _forever_ , and it's something _you_ created. You have to be there. Please?" He gives Gerard his best, most charming smile and leans into him on the couch, pressing up against his side. He waits until Gerard looks down at him, still uncertain, then bites his lip.

Gerard folds, his whole face softening up. "Fine, fine," he says. "You're relentless. And _manipulative_."

"And you're hopeless," Frank says back gleefully, bouncing a little on the couch and running his fingers over his forearm, a temporary blank canvass. Tomorrow, he'll climb back into that chair and oh man, it's only been a few months since his last one, but he's already forgotten exactly what it feels like, that moment before the needle touches you. It doesn't stick with him, he doesn't ever exactly remember. He's gone through it so many times, but every time there's that _moment_ , and it doesn't come back to him until the needle is _there_ and then – mmph.

He can't lie – even thinking about it is turning him on.

It's like a current running under his skin and by the time he walks into the shop the next day with Mikey beside him (Gerard insisted that he come for moral support) and Gerard trailing behind, a shadow in a black hoodie and a pale face, Frank's a bundle of jitters. His stomach is tight with excitement and nervousness – still, after all these times. He loves this tense excitement that winds him up.

It's all a sort of ritual – greeting Kelly and Joe, getting settled in the chair, finding the best position for him to rest his arm, where he can keep it still for the hours this is going to take. He's just getting the outline done today – that's plenty of detail work for one sitting, and pretty much all he can afford at the moment. He'll come back when he's saved up some more cash, to get the color done, and he's already pumped up thinking about that, even while he's waiting for Joe to finish getting set up for this portion.

Mikey is sitting on a rolling chair nearby, pushing his glasses up with his finger as he watches Joe get the ink laid out, get the needle set up, position the lighting, Kelly keeping a close eye on the whole thing. It kind of reminds Frank, of watching Gerard when he's getting ready to sketch. Gerard is hovering over by the display of flash on the walls, giving a critical eye to the one of the skull with flames coming out of the eye and mouth sockets, with _Jesus_ written in complicated curly writing in a banner underneath.

Frank is jittering in place, patting his fingers against his jeans, tugging on his hair, laughing as Mikey scoots around a little on the rolling chair. God, Frank is so ready for this. Gerard wanders over as Joe gets the print-out of the tattoo ready, pressing it down against Frank's forearm, firm and careful, then peeling the paper off in one swift movement. There's the lady that Gerard drew, drew for Frank specifically, laid out in purple temporary ink, looking calm and sure and absolutely perfect.

Frank looks up at Gerard, grinning, and Gerard smiles back helplessly, shaking his head so his hair falls forward over his eyes a little bit. He looks quietly pleased, and Frank has to press his fingernails into the palm of his hand to keep still, to not get up and back him up against the wall and kiss the hell out of him just as a way of saying thank you.

"Ready?" Kelly asks, looking bored. Kelly almost always looks bored.

Frank nods jerkily. "Fuck yeah, let's go."

"Right." Kelly nods at Joe, and Joe turns the needle on, the harsh buzzing sound setting everything alight in Frank's body. This is it.

"Oh God."

Frank looks up and Gerard's face is about ten times paler than before, and he's moved back until he's hovering behind Mikey.

"It's okay," Frank says. "Just don't look, okay?"

Gerard shudders, and shuts his eyes. "Right. Okay. God. That _sound_."

"It's okay, Gee." Frank squirms one last time and nods at Joe to start.

There's that moment of twisted excitement, time suspended, and then the needle touches down and oh man, oh fuck, there it is, Frank forgets, Frank always, always forgets that stomach-turning pain, the intensity of it, how it twists him up inside. There's always that handful of seconds where he thinks he's not going to be able to take this, that it hurts too fucking bad. Joe keeps a firm pressure on his arm with one hand, holding it down while the needle drives the ink under his skin, and it's too much, it's too fucking much.

Frank realizes he's got his eyes shut, and he blinks them open as Joe pulls the needle off to get more ink. The pain is gone immediately, the second the needle lifts up, and he breathes, and swallows, and looks over at Gerard. Gerard has his eyes firmly closed, and his hand is clenched on Mikey's shoulder. Mikey is avidly watching Frank and Joe, but keeps glancing up at Gerard to make sure he's okay.

Frank grins a little, and the needle and pain come back in one buzzing intense blur. He tightens his other hand into a fist, and just breathes. The sound is everywhere, and he's getting into this now – that feeling that he's always been doing this, he's always going to be doing this, the pain is something he has to ride, he has to breathe through it and just bear it. He's good, he's cool, he's fine.

"Gee?" he hears Mikey say, sounding worried. " _Gee_."

Frank looks over and Gerard's face is actually _green_. He's got his eyes open, staring in a sort of horrified fascination at the needle bearing into Frank's arm, and he's breathing very shallow and quick.

Mikey's up and out of the chair and he's got one arm around Gerard's shoulders, holding him up. "Gerard?" he says again, and Gerard blinks, and says, "Oh god, Mikey, I'm gonna –"

"Okay, c'mon." Mikey tugs on Gerard, turning him away from Frank and Joe.

"Back door," Frank says, glancing at Joe, who nods without taking his eyes off of his work.

"Right," Mikey says, and tugs on Gerard again. Gerard follows him, stumbling, eyes wide and panicked, as Mikey shoves open the door to the alley out in back of the tattoo parlor. "Breathe," Frank hears Mikey order as he pulls Gerard out into the bright sunlight of the alley. " _Breathe_ , Gee."

The door falls shut behind them, and Frank looks at Joe, who is still focused on the tattoo, but looks possibly a little amused. "He's got a…thing, about needles," Frank says glumly. "I thought he'd be able to get past it for the sake of his art, but –" He doesn't shrug, because he knows he needs to stay still.

Joe does nothing but nod, and gets more ink.

It comes out _awesome_. Frank hits the euphoria point about halfway in, where he's really deep in the groove of the needle and the buzzing and the paint and the fascination of watching the outline take shape, inch by inch, on his skin. It doesn't even hurt anymore – or, okay, it does, but he's _riding_ that motherfucker, he's into it, really deeply fucking into it. There's a rhythm to it, and the rolling waves of pain and pressure getting mistranslated in his brain, until it's this pulse of pleasure/pain that he cannot fucking get enough of. Whenever Joe stops to fill the needle, Frank is edgy, anxious for that touch of the needle to his skin again, wanting more of it, gritting his teeth and dragging in air through his nose as he sinks into the feeling of it again, and again.

It's motherfucking glorious. He could ride this high for fucking ever.

When Joe finally completes the outline, and rubs Frank's arm down with cleanser, Frank feels almost stoned, he's so giddy. He gets up, unsteady and loose, his palms fucking wet with sweat, his cock half-hard from exhilaration. He wipes his hands on the thighs of his jeans and inspects his lady in the mirror – she looks spectacular, and that's only just the outline. "It's fucking perfect, man, thank you so fucking much."

Joe shrugs, looking pleased. "Thanks."

Kelly's inspecting it, too. "It's a nice piece."

That's high fucking praise indeed from this guy that makes Mikeyway look talkative. Joe bandages Frank up and gives him the speech about taking care of the piece while it's healing. Frank's heard it a half-dozen times before and knows it by heart, but he listens anyway, bouncing on the balls of his feet and unable to stop grinning even as he nods intently.

When Joe's done, Frank heads out the back door, snagging his hoodie with his good arm. He pushes his way through the door and into the alley. Gerard and Mikey are sitting on the ground across from the door, their knees up, backs against the rough wall of the building. The ground around them is scattered with cigarette butts, and Gerard is holding Mikey's hand.

Frank grins. "How're you doing, Gee?" he asks, the nickname coming to his tongue even though he's never used it before. He's felt weird about it; it feels intimate, but he's feeling too good right now to worry about it.

"I didn't puke," Gerard says quickly, giving Mikey's hand a squeeze before letting go and scrambling up off the ground. "I just needed some air."

"Uh-huh," Frank says, looking at Mikey.

Mikey gets up more slowly, awkwardly, all elbows and knees. He pushes his glasses up once he's standing. "He didn't puke," he confirms, "but he did almost pass out." He grins. "I had to make him sit down and put his head between his knees."

"Shut up," Gerard says, with no heat behind it. "It wasn't that bad."

"It totally was," Mikey says to Frank. "He was literally _white_."

"Did you hear the _sound_ in there?" Gerard says loudly, and shudders.

Frank giggles, and pats Gerard's shoulder with his unbandaged arm. "It's okay," he says. "The sound is pretty fierce."

" _Right_?" Gerard says, looking mollified. "How do you stand it?" Then, "Oh! _Oh_ , how did she come out?"

"Motherfucking perfection," Frank says, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt. He brandishes his bandaged forearm, and Gerard leans forward like he can see through it or something. "And if you weren't out here being a wilting flower, you'd have gotten to see her before she got wrapped up."

"Oh." Gerard looks disappointed. "But she's good?"

"She's _amazing_ ," Frank says fervently. "Let's go back to your place? I have to wash it, and that way you can get to see her. You're gonna love her, Gee."

Gerard, who has one hand lightly on Frank's wrist, checking out his bandage, looks up at him, his eyes crinkled, and gives him a lopsided smile. "Yeah," he says. "Okay, yeah, let's go back to my place."

Frank leans in and kisses him. He can't help it. He's feeling that sated, exhausted feeling after all the adrenaline racing through his system for hours, and he's still half turned on in that not-desperate way. It's more like a low thrum through his whole system, and Gerard's lips are soft and perfect under his.

"You guys," Mikey says stiffly, sighing.

"Sorry," Frank says against Gerard's mouth. He's not even a little bit sorry.

"Sorry, Mikey," Gerard says, too, sighing a little bit before he pulls away.

When Frank looks over, Mikey has his eyes averted, and is studiously lighting a cigarette with much more concentration than an experienced smoker like him should have to put into it. Frank giggles again. He can't help it. He feels so fucking _good_. "Let's go," he says, and as they head down the alley, Gerard slips his hand into Frank's. Frank squeezes, and feels the soreness jolt up his arm as he does so, and it makes him shiver. God, he's so fucking gone. He leans into Gerard a little bit and grins happily as they follow Mikeyway's weird little angular stride out to the street.

***

Frank hasn't had a whole hell of a lot of experience with, well, sex in general, and the blowjob thing is kind of a revelation to him.

They're making out on the couch, hot and heavy. Frank's on top of Gerard, and Jesus Christ, it feels so fucking good to be all up against him, his leg pressed in between Gerard's, making Gerard let out this breathy moan every time Frank rocks forward. Frank loves that sound. He _loves_ that sound. He keeps moving, pressing against Gerard while he kisses him, messy and deep, Gerard's arms wrapped around him, tugging him closer. Gerard moans again, oh god, so hot, and he's pushing up with his heels, his knees coming up around Frank's hips, meeting him thrust for thrust.

"Fuck, Frank, fuck, _fuck_ …" Gerard tilts his head back, panting, his cheeks really red, and his lips wet. "You're killing me, you're just –"

Frank wants to do everything to Gerard – he wants to see him break apart, wants to touch him everywhere. He settles for laughing breathlessly and shifting away so he can kneel up over Gerard.

"What – where are you –" Gerard blinks his eyes open, looking up at Frank all dazed.

"Come here." Frank slides Gerard's belt open, flips open the button on his jeans. "Sit up." He climbs off, pushing the coffee table back, and settles on the floor in front of the couch, looking up at Gerard expectantly. He likes the way Gerard's eyes widen, and the swiftness with which Gerard moves, sitting up and pulling his zipper down. He presses the palm of his hand against himself and bites his lip, his eyes fluttering shut for a second. "It feels better already," he says, giving Frank a quick grin.

"Oh yeah?" Frank sits forward, tucks his hands into either side of Gerard's jeans. "Let me feel," he suggests.

"Yeah, I – " Gerard lifts up helpfully as Frank tugs on his jeans, and together they work them down his thighs.

And then there's his cock, hard and huge and Frank's mouth is literally watering for it. Gerard's the one about to get blown, but Frank is so excited he can't even think. He's up on his knees in an instant – god, he wants it in his mouth. If Gerard makes those awesome noises when Frank's just rocking against him, what's he going to do when Frank's got his cock in his mouth?

Frank doesn't have to wait to find out. He wraps his hand around Gerard's cock and sucks it in, no fooling around here, he just wants to _taste_ it. Gerard is…not small. Frank has to work at it, but oh man, it's so worth it. He's sucking the head of it, and Gerard is digging one hand into Frank's shoulder and the other hand into the couch. He's making these tiny, desperate noises in his throat, and when Frank takes a breath through his nose and goes down further, taking as much as he can, Gerard moans, really fucking loud. "Oh Christ, oh fuck, yeah, Frank, just – god, you're so fucking hot like this, on your knees in front of me, Jesus."

His hand tightens on Frank's shoulder, and Frank pulls off some, then goes back down further, and oh man, it feels so good, and he can feel how tense Gerard is under him, holding back like all he wants to do is fuck Frank's face. Frank loves it.

Gerard's voice is all breathy and into it, saying, "Yeah, god, Frank, like that, oh man, your mouth, your _mouth_ …"

Frank is working Gerard's cock with one hand, and he's got the other hand pressed into the pale, soft skin of Gerard's hip. His own cock is so hard he feels like he could come just from the pressure of his jeans, so tight against it, and he keeps shifting his hips as he sucks Gerard off, keeping himself right on the edge.

"Fuck, Frank, you're – I'm – " Gerard never stops talking, and Frank loves it, loves how desperate he sounds. Frank's in this zen place of cocksucking – he's relaxed, he's into it, the steady rhythm, Gerard's cock slick under his hand. He pulls almost all the way off, running his tongue around the head, and he hears Gerard gasp, feels Gerard's whole body tighten. Then he takes a deep breath and goes down, deep, relaxing his throat, working his hand, and taking Gerard in as far as he can. He can only do it for a handful of seconds, but when he pulls back up, Gerard is honest-to-god _babbling_ above him.

"Oh god, oh Frankie, oh fucking just – Jesus _Christ_ ," he spits out, when Frank takes him in again, working him hard and fast and steady with his hand and his mouth, until Gerard's panting, "I'm close, I'm – Frank, Frank, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna – you – ahh – "

He comes, crying out, thrusting up into Frank's mouth, and Frank swallows it down, and it's the hottest goddamn thing that's happened to him, _ever_.

Frank pulls off, and Gerard is wide-eyed and red on the couch. He drags Frank up off his sore knees, pushes him down on the couch, and yanks his pants open. Frank comes two seconds after Gerard wraps his hand around his cock, shaking hard and panting against Gerard's cheek, clutching at Gerard's shoulders so hard his hands hurt.

Gerard kisses him, messy and wet, both of them panting and wrung-out. "Fuck," Gerard slurs against Frank's mouth. "That was amazing. Your fucking _mouth_ , Frankie."

All Frank can do is nod, and kiss Gerard some more. His jaw is sore, his knees hurt, and he loves his goddamn life.

***

Frank had fooled around some, and been with a couple of girls, but he's never had actual sex with a guy. Everything he does with Gerard is new and different and awesome, and there is all this build up, and mostly they want each other so bad and have so little time that all they get are quick, messy handjobs and blowjobs and orgasms that are quick and fast and basically knock Frank out, but they never have time for anything more.

Gerard's behind on his final project, because of all the time he spends with his cock in Frank's mouth. And Frank's mother started noticing his grades slipping, so he's got to spend more time on homework and less time on jerking off thinking about grinding up against Gerard on his basement couch.

But Frank wants _more_. There's only so much they can do on the couch, and they've done a _lot_ of it.

Frank finally drags Gerard away for a weekend. Gerard has to honestly be pulled away from everything he's doing, but he goes, because Frank's mom is away to visit her sister that weekend. And Frank is eighteen, he's legal, and his mom made him promise, no really, _swear_ that he wouldn't have a party. Frank doesn't lie – he won't have a party, he doesn’t want a party, all he wants is Gerard. At his house. In his room.

Gerard comes over – Frank had to pick him up, because sure, Frank drives an old clunker but at least he _has_ an old clunker. Gerard doesn’t drive at all, he walks the fifteen minutes to the train every day, there and back, to get to the school and work. Gerard gets in the car with a smile, and Frank can't stop grinning, and he guns the engine as they drive off, together.

They get back to Frank's house, and go inside, and Frank is suddenly nervous about showing Gerard his house. Which he shouldn't be, because a) Gerard lives with his mom and Gerard is, like, a lot older than Frank, b) Gerard's house is really bizarre, with his mom's weird doll collection and wicker swans and black roses all over, and c) why should it even matter, because he's got Gerard alone! In his house! With no parents or brothers anywhere within earshot! They should be fucking, like, _right now_.

But it's Gerard, and Gerard is interested in _everything_. He drops his backpack in the hallway and he's immediately way more comfortable than he was in the car.

"Cool house," he says, and he says it like he means it, even though it's like every other house in central Jersey, Frank thinks. "I like it. I've been wondering about it, you know?" He's patting his pockets like he's jonesing for a cigarette. "Like, when you call me, or you IM me, or whatever, I wonder where you are, what it looks like. Do you do that? I do that."

Frank does that, yeah. But he's seen where Gerard is – in his bedroom, on the top bunk above Mikey. In his studio, hunched over his drawing table. He thinks about that, a lot. So. "Yeah," he says, and his voice sounds thick, "I do that, too."

"Yeah," Gerard says, smiling at him, and some of the leftover tension eases out of his shoulders visibly. "It's interesting, right? It makes a difference."

Frank shows him the house, the living room, all neat and empty and really fucking quiet, the downstairs bathroom, and the kitchen, where Gerard makes directly for the coffee maker, all bright-eyed and hopeful.

Frank laughs and makes them coffee and they end up sitting at the Formica table in the kitchen, drinking coffee out of the thick mugs that Frank loves, because they feel like diner mugs. The coffee's good, and they talk easier, about the new issue of Doom Patrol, which Frank hasn’t read yet, and Gerard dithers back and forth on whether he should spoil Frank for it or not, but finally relents after Frank insists he doesn’t care (it's _always_ more interesting and awesome with Gerard's excited and dorky spin on things).

The late afternoon sunlight is still filtering in through the blinds over the sink, and it feels homey and domestic and _weird_. It's barely five o'clock, because Gerard got the afternoon off from his internship, and they have the rest of the weekend together, like, forty-eight hours, essentially. It's barely even begun, and Frank feels twitchy and nervous enough that he's half-wishing it was over already, because he doesn't even know what to do with his _hands_ here. He's never felt more awkward in his life.

Gerard's monologue about Doom Patrol stutters to a halt, and he's just sitting there on the other side of the kitchen table – he's in Frank's mom's _kitchen_ , like he's been transplanted from this other world. Frank's heart is beating faster even though nothing has changed, at all, they're just sitting there, but Gerard is looking at him, quiet and calm and his eyes are fucking dark and gorgeous, and Frank suddenly can't even take a breath.

"Hi," Gerard says, soft and totally dorky, and his eyes crinkle as he smiles at Frank, at _Frank_ , and Frank's heart is beating so fast he can't even hear himself think.

"Hi." Frank's voice comes out too high, and he clears his throat, and blushes really hard, so hard he thinks his face might burst into fucking flames. He wants Gerard to touch him so badly it hurts, and he cannot think of how to make that happen. It's like they've never even _met_.

"Hey." Gerard takes the hand that was on his coffee mug and slides it over Frank's wrist. His hand is warm from the mug, and his fingernails are bitten-down, his fingers still smudged from charcoal, and just that, just his fingers on Frank's wrist, sends this jolt of heat through Frank's entire body.

"Oh fuck, Gee." Frank's voice is still too high, and stupidly breathy, and he wants Gerard so bad he can fucking taste it. He's staring and he knows it, but it's like he can't move, like he's pinned there in the stupid uncomfortable seat at the stupid kitchen table that he knows so well. It's _Gerard_ across from him, and everything is skewed, everything Frank ever knew or thought he knew is different, and he feels like _such a kid_.

"Yeah." Gerard's moving, leaning to get at Frank across the table. "Fuck, Frank, I know, right?" Then he's kissing him, and Frank leans in, the table cutting into his middle a little bit, but he doesn’t care, he doesn't _care_ , because Gerard is kissing him in his mom's kitchen. He tastes like coffee and cigarettes, and Frank thinks he's never going to be able to think about either of those things without thinking about Gerard. He feels wrapped up in it; he feels like if he doesn't get his hands on Gerard right now, he's going to _die_.

"Jesus," Frank says finally, breaking the kiss because he can't breathe, "Fuck, just, come here, just –"

Gerard is laughing at him, seriously, grinning so fucking wide and giggling his stupid girl giggle that gets Frank going so hard he doesn't even know what to do with it. He's giggling back even though he's so turned on his brain feels like it's not even connected. "No, you come _here_ ," Gerard demands.

He hauls Frank off his seat, and Gerard is maybe a dorky, out of shape artist dude, but he still has, like, twenty pounds on Frank, and Frank is in his lap like it's nothing, straddling him on the kitchen chair. And, oh, this is so much better, this is _so much better_. Frank is suddenly aware of the fact that he's hard as a fucking rock, and pressed up against Gerard. Gerard is moaning and muttering against Frank's lips, and his hands are pressing and releasing Frank's hips and waist and thighs in the most distracting way possible, and Frank is the happiest he's ever fucking been, _ever_. He's gone from thinking about this long-ass weekend stretching ahead of them to thinking forty-eight hours isn't anywhere _near_ long enough for everything he wants to do to Gerard. For everything he wants Gerard to do to _him_.

They make out in the kitchen until Frank is panting like a fucking dog and rocking up against Gerard in a way that feels so good he can't feel his _hands_. Gerard has one hand tangled in Frank's hair and the other one tucked into a loop in the back of Frank's pants, tugging him _closer_ and _harder_ , and just –

"Seriously, seriously," Frank manages to pant against Gerard's mouth in the millimeter of space Gerard lets him have. "I don't want to come in my pants in my mom's _kitchen_."

"Gnrg." Gerard pulls away and buries his forehead against Frank's shoulder. Frank can feel his breath coming hot and fast through the thin fabric of his school shirt. "Right. Yeah. Okay."

"Bedroom," Frank says, and fuck, that one word has never sounded so fucking dirty to his ears, but it's fucking loaded now. "Fuck, just, c'mon."

He climbs off of Gerard and the two of them stumble up the stairs and it's still fucking _light_ out, how is it still fucking light out? It's, like, five thirty on a Friday afternoon and he is dragging his boyfriend upstairs to fuck.

They finally make it to his room. Frank even made his bed this morning, like a total dork. They stumble through the door and Frank is turned on hard enough that he can't even care about the fact that he just pushes Gerard down on the bed and climbs on top of him. He wants him; he wants him, he _wants_ him. "Jesus," he says against Gerard's lips, rocking forward against him. "Fuck, just – oh god, Gerard, I fucking want –" He doesn't even have the _words_.

Gerard's staring up at him, all flushed. He has stupidly long eyelashes like a girl, and he's so fucking hard, fuck, Frank can _feel_ it. Frank is so far past worrying about being embarrassed or whatever, it's not even funny. He rocks down against Gerard, and Gerard goes, "Aaaahh," _loud_. Frank is all hot with excitement, because he doesn’t have to worry. No one has to be quiet. No one is down the hall, or upstairs, or on the lower bunk, or _anything_.

"Fuck," he says, mostly because he can, and then he's kissing Gerard, kneeling up on top of him, grinding against him on the bed. Fuck, Gerard's feet are still dangling off the bed, and Frank very seriously feels like he could come, right now, without anyone even getting their fucking _shoes_ off.

Gerard's hands are digging into Frank's hips, low, dragging him down against him as they kiss. Then he works them between them to get Frank's belt yanked open, his fly undone. He's tugging Frank's dick out of his pants, and fuck, it's so fucking surreal, Gerard in his _bedroom_ , his hand on Frank's dick, Frank can't even take this.

Gerard has his hand wrapped around Frank, and he's mostly just holding him, firm, letting Frank thrust into the circle of his fingers. Frank is dizzy with it; he wants so bad to _not come_ , to just be doing this forever. Have Gerard pressed against his bed, between his thighs; have Gerard's hand on his cock; have Gerard's wide, dark eyes staring up at him, hot and liquid, like Frank's the best thing he's ever seen in his _life_.

"Gee, fuck, you're –" Frank doesn't know what he was going to say, it doesn't matter, because he's pushing forward into Gerard's hand. The head of his dick is brushing against the rough denim of Gerard's jeans just right, and he's so excited and so hard he can't even take a breath right. "Please, Gerard, please, just – god –"

Gerard makes this happy sound and flips Frank over, pushes him down on the bed as he kneels up over him. Frank makes an incoherent noise in his throat, and Gerard looks down at him through his eyelashes, hot and bright, and slides his mouth down over Frank's cock. Gerard's on his knees, in Frank's bed, going down on him like it's the only thing he's ever wanted to do in the world. Frank is dizzy and gasping up at the ceiling, his hands in Gerard's messy hair as he thrusts up into Gerard's hot and wet and perfect fucking mouth, Jesus _Christ_.

"Gerard," he gasps. "Jesus _Christ_ , Gerard, oh fuck, oh _fuck_." He yanks up on Gerard's hair – he's so close, he's so close already, he's so motherfucking close – and Gerard lifts his head, his mouth open and wet as he looks up at Frank. Frank bites his lip hard and comes before he can even think of holding back. He's gasping roughly for air, his eyes squeezed shut, his entire body flooded with the hot release.

When he manages to open his eyes, his heart beating so fast and hard he wonders if Gerard can actually hear it, Gerard is sitting back on his knees on the bed, laughing and wiping the come off his face with one hand.

"Fuck," Frank says, his face feeling like it's going to go up in flames. "Fuck, sorry, I just – "

"No," Gerard says in this crazy, breathless voice. "It's awesome." He's grinning and licking come off his lips. "Come here, just – come _here_." He pulls Frank towards him and topples down onto his side in a heap. Frank pushes up against him, awkward and flailing and feeling just as fucking turned on as if he hadn't just come all the fuck over Gerard like, ten seconds ago.

"Fuck, yes, yeah," he pants, because Gerard is pushing at him, getting the two of them further on the bed, and Frank wants that, he wants that, he is _all over_ that. He hates his tiny twin bed – he wants to get Gerard on a huge king-sized, something they can really roll around on, god, he wants to roll around with Gerard. Maybe something with a good headboard he can tie him to, or get tied to, or – god, fuck, yeah, he would be all over that, either way - _both_ ways – just –"I want to tie you up," he says, out loud, where people can hear him, because orgasms mean his mouth gets a mind of its own. "Not right now, but yeah, sometime, can I, I just –"

"God, yeah," Gerard says against his neck. "Fuck, yeah, anything, yes, fuck, Frank –"

Frank is just – he has this fucking _wave_ of love for Gerard come swooping over him. He can't even take it, he loves him so fucking much for just – for all of this. For making out in his mom's kitchen with him, for being here with him right now, climbing on top of him on his stupid twin bed and not even caring. For not blinking an eye at Frank's stupid run-on mouth, for saying yes to getting tied up. Fuck, Frank is getting hard again _right now_ , because his life is fucking awesome right now, at this very minute.

"Fuck." Gerard's breath is damp and hot against his neck and Frank can feel how hard he is against his thigh. Frank pulls back a little, because he wants to _see_. Gerard is flushed and his eyes are wide and turned-on.

"You should fuck me," Frank says without getting the words lined up in his brain, first. It’s not how he was planning to ask for it, but it's what he's been thinking for weeks now.

Gerard makes a noise in his throat, and his hips thrust down against Frank like a reflex. "Frank," he says, uneasily. Like he didn't know that was maybe the point of this weekend. Like he hadn't been thinking about it just as much as Frank had – which, okay, maybe he hadn't, but Frank hasn’t actually been able to _stop_ thinking about it since he found out his mom would be going away. He'd been reading about it online (yet another use for his laptop that his mom maybe had not intended) – not, like, porn (though, okay, that too), but more like how-tos and logistical videos.

It freaks him out a little, but he wants to try it. He…really wants to try it. With Gerard. Like. Now. "Yeah," he says breathlessly, arching up and wrapping his legs around Gerard's hips. "I want to. I want you to." He's dizzy with it, suddenly – like everything he's been thinking about for the last week and a half is probably about to happen here and now and he is so, so fucking ready for it.

"Frankie," Gerard says again, and he sounds a little freaked out, a lot turned on. His voice is coming out funny – high-pitched and rough, both at the same time, and Frank would crack up if he wasn't so turned on he thought he might break apart if he did. "Are you sure? I mean –" He stops, clears his throat, and moves to the side a little, still pressed up against Frank like he doesn't actually want to move apart, but clearly trying to have a serious business discussion about this, without his dick pressed up against Frank's thigh.

Frank moves, too, pressing up against Gerard, hard. Gerard sucks in a breath, and closes his eyes. "Yeah," Frank manages, after a moment. "I want you to. I really, really fucking want you to, okay?"

Gerard blinks his eyes open and Frank slides his hand against the front of Gerard's jeans, palming Gerard's cock, and effectively cutting off any long and drawn-out argument Gerard was about to launch into.

Gerard presses his face against the side of Frank's neck and groans. "You're persuasive," he says thickly.

"I try," Frank whispers into Gerard's hair. He's not entirely hard again yet, but he's getting there. He's so fucking hot for this, he can't even take it. His bedroom is in shadow – the shades are open, and dusk is falling. Gerard is half-lit by the sun going down outside and he looks like he's glowing – like those old paintings always do, lit only by candle, shadows almost taking over.

Frank pushes away a little now that he's gotten confirmation that Gerard isn't going to outright refuse, and rolls over to yank open his bedside table drawer. He pulls out a strip of condoms, and the lube he'd bought at the Rite-Aid in the next town over, refusing to be ashamed or anything like that when he pushed the items across the counter to the clerk. He thrusts them both at Gerard now, beaming.

Gerard giggles a little, clutching at the bottle and the condoms. "Very well prepared," he says. "I'm impressed. Maybe we should take our shoes off first, huh?"

"Oh," Frank says. His jeans are undone and shoved down his thighs, his school shirt still on, stained with come and completely rumpled. And, yeah, his shoes are still on, as are Gerard's. Frank fumbles his off as quickly as he can, and shoves his jeans off, too, and, after a second, the rest of his clothes. He is motherfucking _ready_ , okay?

By the time he's done with that, Gerard has managed to pick open the laces of one boot and get it off, but he's still working on the laces of the second. He stops, bent over his leg still, to stare at Frank a little glassy-eyed as Frank sprawls naked on the bed, impatient and almost all the way back to hard now.

"What?" Frank asks, and giggles a little – he can't help it, it's all so hot and vaguely ridiculous at the same time. "Get your other damn boot off," he demands, poking at Gerard with one bare foot.

"Right," Gerard says vaguely, still staring at Frank where he's sprawled out, probably looking less like porn and more like a dork, but he's okay with that. Gerard's a dork, too. Frank knows Gerard has more experience than he had, but he wonders – he maybe should have _found out_ \- if Gerard’s actually fucked anybody else, if he’s got any experience in this particular field.

Gerard finally wrestles the motherfucking boot off – his socks have come off with the boots, which is just fine with Frank - and turns back to Frank on the bed. He's still got his jeans on, and his hoodie, and a t-shirt under that, because Gerard is not a man of few layers. Frank hauls him back onto the bed regardless – he is _done_ with waiting, completely done. His first orgasm barely took the edge off, and he's, like, wound tight with wanting this.

"Frank," Gerard says, like he's going to launch into explaining something important, but he's kissing Frank almost before he's finished saying his name. Gerard's hair is soft against Frank's face, and he's moaning quietly into Frank's mouth, and he doesn't fight it when Frank starts wrestling the hoodie off of him. He doesn't stop kissing Frank, either, but keeps leaning in while he works with Frank to get first one, then the other arm out of his hoodie. Frank tries to fight his hands between their bodies to get at Gerard's pants, but gives it up as a lost cause almost immediately, and shoves Gerard away again, hard, panting.

"Frank," Gerard says breathlessly, his hair a crazy mess, his lips red and wet.

"Come on," Frank says, and rolls over onto his stomach. He wants this. He wants this so bad he can _taste_ it.

"Jesus," Gerard says behind him, and the bed shifts as he gets up. Frank hears the clink of his belt being quickly undone, and grins into the pillow.

"Frank, fuck," Gerard says, and Frank looks over his shoulder at him, watches him as he shoves his jeans down his thighs and off, and peels his t-shirt off at the same time as he moves back to the bed. He's naked – fully naked, for the first time with Frank, and god, it feels like _such_ a big deal, like, so much more than anything else they've been doing. Gerard's skin is pale and looks soft, and oh, he went commando today - his dick is hard and obvious and makes Frank's mouth fucking water. He wants to touch him _everywhere_.

Gerard's watching him back, his hair falling into his eyes as he moves onto the bed next to Frank, kneeling up beside him and just looking at him for a minute. Frank feels poised on the bed – they've already done a lot, they've been all over each other all the fucking time, and still, this feels new and different and fucking _life-changing_. And – he's waiting, he _wants this_ , and it's big, he knows it's a big deal, and he wants it.

"Fuck," Gerard says again, running his hands down Frank's back and moving to kneel over him as he runs his fingers up high on Frank's back – tracing the outline of the pumpkin, Frank realizes, as a shiver runs down his spine. He can feel Gerard's weight on top of him, and Gerard's thighs are hot against his sides, and Frank groans against the pillow and rolls his hips, his dick pressing against the mattress. Gerard makes a sound in his throat when Frank does that, and Frank grins, and does it again.

"Frank," Gerard says in this warning tone of voice, like that was ever going to stop Frank. "Fucking just –" He reaches up and grabs Frank's wrist, pins it to the bed next to his head as he drops his weight down on him. Frank sucks in a breath and goes very still, because – fuck, that feels good. Gerard's hand pinning his wrist down, keeping him still. Gerard's weight fully on him on the bed, Gerard's cock pressing down against Frank's ass, hard and hot and oh so fucking ready.

Frank breathes for a second, his face hot and his blood feeling like it's on _fire_ , and then – he rolls his hips again, as best he can.

"You fucker," Gerard breathes against his ear, his voice tight. "Okay, then." He shifts and Frank makes a tiny disappointed noise when Gerard lets go of his wrist. Gerard moves back and away, his cock dragging hot and heavy against Frank's ass. Frank's whole body tightens up in anticipation.

Gerard is still moving back though, and Frank feels tense and a little weird and a lot turned on. And sort of totally exposed, which, wow, of course he's totally exposed, there's about to be fucking. He's completely hard and he's pretty sure he's leaking onto the bedspread, and maybe he should have moved that, maybe they should be doing this on the sheets, he didn't think this through and –

"Breathe, Frankie," Gerard is saying from somewhere behind him, sounding – calm and easy and not teasing just, like, helping. "Just breathe, okay?"

"Yeah, I –" Frank sucks in a deep breath as Gerard settles down, nudging his legs apart a little.

"I'm just –" Gerard presses his tongue, hot and firm, at the small of Frank's back. He licks him there, in this spot down low where, like, a zillion of Frank's nerve endings seem to be centered, because it's fucking _zinging_ through him, and he has to gasp in order to breathe.

"What," he's saying, clutching at the pillow under his head. "I – what?"

"Just," Gerard says, low, and then he's licking Frank more, and making this noise in his throat like he's really, _really_ enjoying it. He's moving – the small of Frank's back is cool now, when the air hits where Gerard's hot mouth was a second ago, and Gerard's tongue moves down, licking the curve of his actual ass now.

And that's weird, that should be weird, but Frank can't even really process it before Gerard's hands are on his ass, too. Frank can feel Gerard's breath against his skin, and Gerard is licking down, and down, and _in_ , and –"Oh god, oh fuck, oh – Gerard. _Gerard_ \- you – wait - _what_ –"

Gerard moans, just a little, but Frank can feel it through his entire fucking body, and then Gerard just…keeps…licking. And it's hot and weird and _hot_. Frank is so fucking turned on by – every part of this. How it feels – Gerard's tongue feels _hot_ against him, and rough, and it's, like, this almost delicate, steady rhythm that is fucking breaking him apart. His face is so hot and he presses it into the blankets. He doesn't want to move, because he loves this, he loves the rhythm of Gerard's tongue against him, and it feels like if he even shifts, he'll break that up. So he just lies there, clutching at this pillow with sweaty hands, and trembles.

Gerard presses his tongue _in_ a little again, and Frank's suddenly got his head thrown back, gasping for air, and he's making these _noises_ that he cannot fucking control if his life _depended_ on it. He's whining low in his throat and his hips are stuttering against the bed again because he can't not move against the rhythm of Gerard's tongue. He's so hard and so excited and so fucking – so _motherfucking_ -

"Jesus, Frank." Gerard has his hands on him, is lifting his hips, urging him up onto his knees. " _Fuck_ , you're so fucking – responsive, I just – your voice, your fucking – Jesus, your fucking _cock_ –"

Gerard has reached around and wrapped his hot hand around Frank's cock, and Frank makes this really loud noise, and pushes back against Gerard behind him, then forward into his fist. He can't control himself at all anymore. He's dripping, he's so fucking hot for it, and his bones feel like fucking rubber, and he can't lift his head, and he wants – he just fucking wants –

"Fuck, fuck, hang on," Gerard says, sounding desperate and close. "Fuck, motherfuck," and when Frank manages to get his eyes open, crane his neck to look behind him, Gerard is opening a condom with shaking hands, rolling it on. He looks so gone – his hair a mess, his eyes crazy, naked and his cock is so fucking hard and all Frank can do is say, "Please, Gee, just – please, you've got to –"

"Give me a second," Gerard says in this tight voice. "I've got to just –"

He anchors one hand on Frank's hip, and then he's got one finger pressed up against Frank, slippery with lube and Frank can feel that Gerard is shaking. "God. Okay," Gerard says, like he's steadying himself, and then he pushes his finger in. Frank gasps, loud, and it feels weird for about ten seconds and then it doesn't and he pushes back without realizing he's going to do it, like his body is going ahead without him.

Gerard goes, "Fuck, yeah, Frank, you're so fucking - _hot_ ," and pulls his finger out, and pushes in again with two. And oh yeah, that does feel really fucking weird, but Frank can fucking take it, Frank wants it so bad, he just – he rides it out, biting his lip hard, rocking back and forth against the pressure of Gerard's fingers.

Gerard is so good, he's _so good_ , he takes it slow and easy, even though Frank can _feel_ him shaking, can feel his cock brushing up against his hip so fucking hot and hard every time Frank rocks back. Gerard just keeps one hand steady on Frank – on his hip, or on the small of his back, he keeps shifting it – and talks him through it.

"You're so good, you're so _good_ , you look so good like this," Gerard pants. "Breathe, just – breathe, okay, and tell me if you want me to stop, god, I don’t want to stop." Gerard's voice is rough and breathless himself, sounding out of control. "You just – you feel so good, and god, I want to fuck you, can't wait to fuck you."

"More," Frank says, sounding broken even to his own ears. "More, give me – _Christ_ ," he spits out when Gerard gives him three fingers, and he rocks back into it, and they both moan at the same time.

Finally, finally, after what seems like hours, Gerard pulls his fingers out and moves more fully behind Frank, and says, "Now, okay? I just – now?"

"Fucking yes." Frank is barely holding himself together here, he wants it so bad.

"Yeah," Gerard says, rough and breathless, and pushes in. Frank is lubed and ready but Gerard moves slow, god, slower than Frank could ever think he could, after all that foreplay. It feels like nothing in this world, and it's only weird at the start, and after Gerard is about halfway in, all Frank wants is _more_.

Gerard pushes and pushes, and Frank is staying on his knees through sheer will, shaking and sweating, when Gerard is finally fully in, draped over his back, breathing hard against his shoulder, whispering, "God. I – You –"

Frank doesn’t have words, all he can do is moan, and Gerard presses a kiss to the skin of his shoulder. "Are you – is it okay, Frankie? Are you good?"

And Jesus, Frank is okay, Frank is good, Frank would be _great_ if Gerard would fucking _fuck him_. He feels unbelievably full and Gerard feels so huge inside him. Frank feels like he's balancing on a precipice and if Gerard would just –

"Move," he pants, his arms giving out as he says it. He drops down to his elbows, resting his sweaty forehead on his wrists as he says, again, "God, yeah, just – move, come on, do it, please, I need you to – I want –"

Gerard makes this incoherent sound behind him and pulls out slowly, almost all the way, before sinking back in and it's almost too much, so goddamn much, Frank is so fucking into this. He's biting his own wrist a little bit, just sinking his teeth in, just holding on, and Gerard is moving so slow and careful, still.

"Gerard," Frank manages, his voice coming out stupidly high and breathless. "Just – fucking harder, Jesus. Just - _more_."

"Nrrgh." Gerard's hands tighten on Frank's hips. "I –"

"Seriously." Frank drags in a breath and pushes himself back as Gerard slides forward, hard, and oh yeah, oh _yeah_. "That's – oh god, yeah, that's it, okay, just –"

"Yeah," Gerard says, tightly, and starts to really move. _Finally_. He's still a little careful, but he's not slow and he's really doing it, now, really fucking him, and Frank just wants him to _lose_ it. Frank feels like he's the one who's been falling the fuck apart and he wants some of that from Gerard, dammit.

Gerard pushes in again, hard, and fast, and oh god, Frank could ride this wave for fucking ever. He moans, loud, because he _can_ , because there's no one to hear, and braces himself harder against the bed, and _shoves_ himself back to meet Gerard's next thrust.

Gerard cries out, even louder than Frank, and shoves Frank forward with one hand on his back and the other on his hip, slamming into him way harder than he has until this point.

Frank grins fiercely against the blankets. "Yes, yeah, yes, that, go, _go_."

"Fuck you," Gerard gasps, and slams into him again. "Oh god, Frankie, fuck _you_ , you just –"

Frank is shaking apart, and Gerard is losing it, sweating and fucking him hard and fast. Frank's knees finally give out, and he's flat-out against the mattress, and Gerard just groans brokenly and follows him down, his body a heavy weight against Frank's. It's fucking perfect – Frank's cock is rutting against the mattress, just this side of too much, as Gerard drives into him. All Frank can do is keep egging him on, talking breathless and broken, his words slurred against the sheets, as he just gasps, over and over, "Yeah," and "That," and "Harder, Gee, fucking _fuck_ me."

Gerard's muttering curses against his ear, the skin of his neck, his shoulder, his breath quick and damp, his voice fucking gone. "Frank, yeah, you're so – so – so –"

Gerard drags Frank hard up against him, holding him tight as he drives in deep, and again, and his teeth dig into Frank's shoulder as he moans helplessly and slams into him one more time, and comes hard inside of Frank. He's a heavy weight, pinning Frank to the bed, shaking and making small sounds as Frank gasps for breath and _feels_ Gerard's cock jerking inside him.

Gerard shifts, finally, and breathes, and pulls out carefully, which doesn't feel as great as the fucking part. "Come here," he says, his voice rough and fucked-out.

Frank is still hard and frantic and he rolls over immediately, his cock standing up hard over his stomach. He's got his hand around his cock, jerking himself off before he can even think about being embarrassed about it, and it feels so good, he's so close, he's just – he shoves up into his hand hard and comes all over his stomach, his whole body twisting and shaking with orgasm.

"Jesus," Gerard says softly. When Frank manages to blink his eyes open again, Gerard is lying naked beside him, his hair crazy, his eyes dark as he stares at Frank.

"Sorry," Frank pants up at him, his hand still wrapped around himself. "I had to just –" He squeezes himself a little, and shudders.

"…that was so fucking hot." Gerard's face is open and stunned, and he's biting his lip a little bit.

Frank blushes, pleased and shy, suddenly. Gerard rolls over – the bed's so small that he ends up half on top of Frank – and kisses him. "This was a good idea," he says against Frank's lips. "I like this weekend."

It's darker outside, now, and a chilly breeze is coming in through the window, and they have the whole weekend ahead of them.

"I like _you_." Frank doesn't think before saying it, and he sounds a little like a tool, but Gerard's face softens and he just kisses Frank again.

***

This has been going on for a while, like, Frank _really likes_ Gerard and Gerard _really likes_ Frank, but it's still new, it's only been a couple of months. It's still weird, because Frank is a senior in high school and supposed to be gearing up for business school, and he _is_ , but.

Frank confesses to Gerard that he has this idea rolling around in his head, like business school is smart and a sure thing, but he doesn't want a sure thing. Business school isn’t want he wants - he wants to take a fucking _chance_. He wants to do things. He wants to live, and he wants to play guitar so bad it hurts. Gerard listens to him talk about how he keeps opening his mouth to say something to his mom, then putting it off, because his mom is so happy and invested and making excited plans for Frank's future. It's all about Frank doing well, and making more of his life than she did of hers, and she keeps telling Frank she's proud of him, and every time it's like a knife in Frank's heart.

Gerard fucking gets that, big time. He thinks about that show he saw with Mikey – the one that sent the idea for a band rolling through his mind. He hasn't talked to Frank about it. He hasn’t talked to anyone about it. It's too big. It's too far away.

"I can't tell her. I _can't_. " Frank looks fucking miserable.

Frank tells him how every time Frank picks up a guitar, he feels like he's coming _home_. He looks like he is, just talking about it – his face _glows_. Frank says that when his friend Ray works with him, Ray gets this look on his face and says to him – says to him _every time_ \- "You're _good_ , Frank. Practice – a _lot_ of practice – would make you better, but you're really good. You've got it, you know?"

"And I _know_ ," Frank says intently to Gerard. "I know – I know from how it feels in my hands. I know from how Ray looks at me, how Ray even lets me _touch_ his guitars. I know I'm good." He looks at Gerard, his eyes fierce. "And I know I could get better."

Gerard watches him. He knows this is what Frank wants, the same way he wants to keep breathing.

"I keep trying to forget about it," he says, his face sad and troubled.

Gerard pulls him in for a hug. "That doesn't work so well, huh," he says into Frank's hair, and closes his eyes tight.

***

They hang out a lot in the next couple of weeks, and half the time it's just Frank doing his homework quietly in the corner of Gerard's studio while Gerard works on the huge project that's, like, half of his final grade. Gerard curses and hums and sings and talks to himself a lot, but Frank's so fucking OCD when he's working that he's able to relegate that to background noise and find it kind of soothing.

Sometimes Frank quietly doing his statistics homework in the corner gets to Gerard and he's all, "I can feel you all _concentrating_ from _here_. You are _throwing off my vibe_ ," and Frank takes off early, no harm, no foul, he gets it. Mostly.

Sometimes Gerard forgets Frank is even there. He gets all involved in the work, smoking like a fiend and getting ink on his forehead and streaked down his nose, and Frank can stare and stare at him and Gerard never feels it or looks up the way normal humans do. There was this one time Frank fell asleep there on the couch, and Gerard totally missed it and finished up and went upstairs to bed and _shut off the light_ so that Frank woke up alone in the dark basement and freaked the fuck out and barely made it home for his curfew.

Frank is aware of Gerard not being the world's greatest boyfriend, but he's not willing to give it up – what's good is so much more than what's bad. It's not entirely healthy, but he's in _love_.

***

In the meantime, Gerard is getting more and more hopeless inside his head, because he has _no time_ for this. He had no time before, but now he _really_ doesn't, and he wants time for Frankie. He wants time for music. He wants time to draw Frank's next fucking tattoo that he promised him ages ago and never drew, because he's too fucking busy trying to pass his classes and keep his internship.

It's making him crazy and he doesn't know what to _do_. He's less focused than usual, and he doesn’t want to go to his internship, doesn't want to work on his final project, and if he goes much longer without showing his face in his classes, he's going to get in real trouble.

Which is not what he wants; it was never what he wanted. He loves Elena, he misses her every fucking day of his life. That's never going to go away – it's a hole in his heart, and he's always going to feel that. He's supposed to be doing this for himself, and for her, and for what she wanted for him. She always knew him better than he knew himself, knew how he got in his own way, and she pushed him just exactly how he needed to be pushed, made him see the light, got him going in the right direction.

He'd wanted this, he had. And he's not ready to give it up.

Still, when Frank calls and says he's going into the city to hang out with Ray and play some music and that Gerard should come with, Gerard's heart rate picks up a notch, and he's saying yes without even thinking. He has class in the morning, and preliminary sketches due next week, but he just. He wants to see what it's like, when Frank and Ray get together and play. He wants to see what it's like when Frank gets to do what's in his heart.

So. "Yeah," he says again. "Yeah, okay."

"Cool," Frank says, sounding surprised. "Well, cool. I'll pick you up. Give me twenty minutes?"

"Sounds good," Gerard says.

"I'm really glad you're coming out," Frank says, a little shyly. "I – yeah, I'm glad, I think you and Ray will really hit it off."

Gerard doesn't think he's been that much of a hermit, lately, but – maybe he has. He and Frank have been spending a lot of time in Gerard's basement with their hands down each other's pants.

So Frank picks him up and brings him to Ray's place – a tiny studio apartment in the Village, with not much in it except a couch, a coffee table, a computer on rickety desk in the corner, and a _lot_ of music equipment. Amps and wires are everywhere, and Ray has three guitars, all carefully set up on stands away from the electronics and away from the tables, and everything was in pristine condition. The apartment itself is pretty neat and smells way better than Gerard's basement, and the furniture is old and worn-in. Ray has a great smile and an epic 'fro and a shockingly girly voice, from where he towers over both Gerard and Frank, filling the entire doorway, and saying, "Nice to meet you," to Gerard like he _really means it_.

Gerard feels comfortable pretty much immediately.

Frank grins at him as he sits down on the couch, accepting the beer that Ray offers and eyeing the sheet music covering the table. It's half-filled in, and Gerard looks up at Ray. "You write your own music?" he says.

Ray nods, and grins. "Yeah," he says, running a hand through his (really truly gigantic and impressive) mop of hair. "Just fooling around right now, I don't know, but it's kind of always running through my head, you know? Songs and tunes and chords and –" He shrugs, eloquently, and Gerard doesn't think he notices that his fingers are moving like they're on the frets of a guitar. Like the melody is in his head right now, while he's talking about it.

Gerard really likes this guy. "I really like this guy," he says to Frank, who grins even bigger, and sits down very close to Gerard on the couch. Gerard isn't sure if he's out to Ray – if Ray knows this is, like, the closest they've come to a date – but Ray gives him another sheet of music and starts talking about the lyrics he's working on, and it's all so _good_ \- it's exactly where Gerard wants to be.

Frank jitters around enough that Ray finally gets up to grab one of his guitars – he checks that it's in tune, and it is (Gerard would bet _all_ of the guitars are, all of the time) – and he plugs it in to an amp, and gets Frank set up with it on a chair. He gives him some music to follow – some Zeppelin, some Beatles - and coaches him through it, occasionally moving Frank's fingers on the frets when Frank isn't quite getting it himself.

And Frank is _good_. Gerard has pretty much zero talent on any instruments himself, but he knows from decent guitar playing, and Frank has this sort of natural knack for it – he keeps telling Gerard that he's still just learning, but he's clearly come further than that. Ray is nodding at him, and when Frank gets caught up in playing, clearly forgetting that he's being observed or anything, he gets even better. It's like the guitar is an extension of him, and he moves with it, his eyes closed, really getting into it.

Gerard gets up and gets himself another beer, and just listens. After a while, when Frank is warmed up and easier with it, Ray picks up one of the other guitars and starts playing with him. And holy fuck – if Frank is good, Ray is goddamn amazing. The dude can _shred_ , and he and Frank are on a roll, Frank following along behind him, a little bit slower, but the two of them working the music, Ray keeping an eye on Frank, clearly slowing things down for him, but Frank is keeping up, and Gerard can't stop moving to the music, it pulls him along, too, and it's great. It's really fucking great.

"You're good," Gerard says to Frank, when they take a break, and he claps, and Ray goes to the kitchen to get everyone another round of beer. "You're really fucking good."

Frank grins, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright. "Ray's really fucking good," he says, shrugging, but still beaming. "I'm just getting there."

"You're really fucking getting there," Gerard says.

"I know, right?" Frank responds, giggling. "Oh man, I fucking love this. I _fucking_ love this, you know?"

"Yeah," Gerard says, because – yeah, he knows. He fucking loves it, too – the energy that comes from it, that fills the entire fucking room when Frank and Ray were making music here. It's a thing of fucking beauty, and Gerard is so caught up in it, and –"Yeah. I fucking know."

Ray comes back with three beers and a bag of weed, and oh, yes. This is a good night.

The three of them smoke up, talking about everything and anything. Frank sticks close to Gerard, sitting slumped up against him, giggling even more than usual after two hits. Ray picks up his guitar again, like he just wants something to do with his hands, and starts strumming something Gerard recognizes – it's the opening chords to "Winterlong," and Gerard motherfucking _loves_ the Pumpkins. He doesn't even really notice when he starts singing along, but after a few lines, Ray's head comes up and he looks at Gerard thoughtfully. He starts singing with him, taking the backline, the two of them having fun with it, harmonizing at times, just backing each other up at others. It's so stupid and so ridiculous and Gerard is so high, and it feels so fucking _good_.

Frank is staring at Gerard, a little glassy-eyed. Ray lets the music wrap itself up and they both sit there looking at Gerard. "That was amazing," Frank announces, struggling up onto his knees on the couch and sitting back on his heels, looking at Gerard. "That was fucking amazing."

Ray is still looking at Gerard real thoughtfully, his arms resting lightly on the top of the guitar. "Frank didn't tell me you could sing."

"Frank didn't know he could sing," Frank shoots back, still staring at Gerard.

Gerard shrugs, pleased, and picks up his beer, finishes it off with three quick swallows. "I can sing," he says. "What. I was Peter Pan, in middle school."

Frank blinks. "Of course you were Peter Pan," he says, sounding dazed and stoned. "I – of course you were."

Gerard shrugs again, and rolls another joint.

Later, when Gerard is coming back from the bathroom, he hears Ray saying, "So you and Gerard."

Gerard stops in the hall, resting one hand lightly on the wall to keep himself steady.

"Yeah," Frank says, sounding a little belligerent. "Me and Gerard."

"Oh," Ray says. "I didn't – I wasn't sure."

"It's pretty new," Frank says, more quietly. "He's – I don't know. He's pretty fucking cool, Ray."

"Yeah," Ray says. "Yeah, I can see that. Only – I mean, you're graduating this year, right? Like, soon."

"Yeah, and so is he," Frank says. "So what?" Only he sounds like he knows so what.

"I know, art school, he said." Ray sighs a little bit. "I'm just – be careful, you know, Frank? I mean…"

"What?" Frank's back to belligerent.

"Things change, and he – I don't know, you gotta be careful. You have a whole future, and he does, too. Where's he going after he's out of school? Dude's twenty-two, right? Is he even staying in Jersey?"

"I don't know, okay?" Frank says. "He doesn't – we haven't talked about it, yet. It's still new. We're – still new."

"Hey," Ray says. "Listen, I like the guy. I'm just –"

Gerard pushes himself forward and into the room. They both look up at him at the same time, the slow turn of the drunk and stoned. "What?" Gerard deadpans. "I’m a likable guy."

Ray grins at him, and Frank giggles, and Gerard just looks at Frank until Ray gets up and very casually excuses himself to the bathroom.

"What?" Frank asks.

Gerard just shakes his head, his hands still in his hair. His head hurts a little, and he's not drunk enough for this. Frank has a whole future ahead of him. Who the hell is Gerard to derail that? Where the fuck _is_ he going after he's out of school? He doesn't know. Nobody knows. Maybe Elena did, once.

"Hey." Frank gets up off the couch and stumbles over to him. "Gerard. Just – I don’t know how much of that you heard, but – it doesn't matter."

"It kind of does." Gerard shakes his head helplessly, his hands falling to his sides.

"It really, really doesn't," Frank says softly. "Look at me." He waits until Gerard actually does, taking in his jeans so badly torn, the knees are held together with duct tape, his worn-out black t-shirt, and his hair that - even with the conservative haircut - is half-crazy with sweat and standing up on half of his head. "I'm going to _business_ school in the fall." They stare at one another for a handful of seconds before they both start laughing. "We're _both_ fucked."

Gerard is laughing too hard to respond – maybe slightly hysterical laughter, but laugher nonetheless – and Frank falls against him, giggling, then shoves him back until he hits the wall beside the doorway. "Come here," Frank says, giggles dying off, serious now and sliding his tongue into Gerard's mouth. He's up on his toes in front of Gerard, kissing him soft and slow.

It's intense and Gerard holds onto Frank's hips as hard as he possibly can, melts back against the wall and just _takes_ it. Frank is pressed up hard against him, and he's got one hand caught in Gerard's hair, holding on tight, and he's making these sounds in his throat that are hot and needy and just hitting Gerard right in his motherfucking _core_.

"Fuck," Frank says, barely pulling back, just putting the inch of space between them so he can speak. "Fuck, Gerard, I just fucking –"

"I know," Gerard says back, when Frank just stops, his eyes wide and desperate with it. "I fucking _know_."

Frank sinks back into kissing him again, up against the wall in Ray's shitty apartment. He's never been more right. They are both so fucking screwed.

***

Frank wakes up one morning and his throat hurts like crazy, and his head feels congested and slow. He can't even think of anything he did different to bring this down on himself – his life just sucks, as does his immune system. But he has a project due that day and he has to go to school to turn it in, and maybe he doesn't really care about school, but he still needs to end with good grades to keep up his GPA, and he can't just _not_ go in.

He pushes himself up in bed, and fucking hates his complete lack of an immune system. He gets up and showers. It's just a fucking sore throat, he's been through a lot fucking worse in his time. But he feels, like, really shaky after the shower, and has to sit down on the bed with his towel around his waist for a while before he can get himself together enough to pull on his uniform. He manages it, even though he gets actually dizzy bending over to put his shoes on, and seriously, fuck his fucking life.

He takes a bunch of aspirin and tells himself it's one fucking day, seriously, he just has to get through seven hours and he can come home and go to bed and it'll be fine.

It's a long-ass day and he's all fuzzy-headed and half-stupid through it. His throat hurts the entire time, and the aspirin never seems to kick in, and he ends up skipping his last class to just go home and fucking die. His head is pounding and his chest feels tight the way it does before he gets one of the deep chest colds he is consistently fucking fighting off. He hates his life. He's not been getting enough sleep, and maybe spending so much time in Gerard's basement isn't the greatest thing for him. He makes his way home, feeling on the verge of tears, because he is eighteen fucking years old and he shouldn't have to be worrying about his failing body or staying up too late with his fucking boyfriend who he barely gets to see _anyway_ , and he's just so pissed off and in pain and exhausted, he can't even take it.

When his mom comes home from work that night and taps on his door, Frank is dragged out of a fucked-up dream involving getting lost in his own basement, and when he tries to tell her to come in, he has no fucking voice at all, and all he can do is cough. His mom comes in and takes one look at him, lying there all pathetic and shivering under the covers, and says, "Oh, _Frank_."

Which. He knows she doesn't mean it like that, he knows it's not his fault he gets sick so fucking often, but he's too tired and shot and done to fight off that feeling of failure, even though he's done nothing wrong. He pushes his hot face into the pillow and mumbles something about being sorry, and even his mom's cool hand on his forehead just makes him feel more miserable.

She brings him tea and aspirin, and takes his temperature and sits down beside him on the bed to keep him company while he drinks the tea. It’s hot and sweet and feels good against his throat.

Frank's mom presses her hand against his head again, even though she took his temperature with an actual thermometer a few minutes ago. He tries not to feel too pathetic, even though he's still so fucking shaky that he has to lift the mug of tea with two hands. She used honey instead of sugar – it's one of her go-to cures. "You're not going to school tomorrow," she says firmly.

"I'll probably be okay by morning," Frank says. He could be. You never know.

His mom just shakes her head. "I don't care, you're still staying home." She frowns, glances at her watch. "I can call Kathy, she can probably cover my shift tomorrow."

"Mom," he says, trying not to roll his eyes. "I'm _eighteen_. You don't have to stay home with me because I have a _cold_."

She sighs, and touches his hand. "I know. You're right. I just worry."

"I'll be fine." He puts the cup of tea down on his bedside table – he's fucking exhausted, too tired to drink it – and lets his mom tug the covers up firmly around him. His head hurts, a lot, but he just took aspirin, so there's nothing he can do about it.

"Just sleep," she says. "I'll bring you up something to eat later on, okay?"

"Yeah," he says, or tries to, but he's already halfway gone. He's freezing, still, even under all the covers, and he vaguely feels his mom tug up the extra blanket from the bottom of the bed. It settles heavily under him, feels good, weighs him down. He's asleep before she's even out of the room.

He only barely remembers her coming up to try to wake him to eat dinner - he wakes up a little, but he feels so fucking out of it, and his throat hurts, and his chest is really fucking tight. He tries not to cough in front of her, but after he swallows the aspirin she brought him and tells her he can't eat right now, he waits until she leaves before he turns his face into the pillow and starts coughing. It's not too bad right now – just _there_ , insistent – but the coughing fit takes it out of him and he's asleep again in minutes.

He wakes up in the middle of the night because of the buzzing of his cell phone. He's completely bewildered – it's pitch black out and he can't see his clock, and there are too many covers on him, and he's sweaty instead of shivering. He has no fucking clue where his phone might be, and he's foggy enough that it takes him, like, a while of crawling around on the floor of his room to find it in the pocket of his pants that he stripped off when he got home.

He's half-asleep and it's kind of a struggle to get the phone out of the pocket of his pants. It stopped buzzing a while ago, and he crawls back into bed with it, shivering again, and his head is pounding. It had been Gerard calling, and Frank vaguely remembers telling him he might be able to come over that afternoon. He'd been going to call, he really had, but – sleeping. He flips the phone open and calls Gerard back. It rings a whole bunch of times, and Frank has his eyes closed, waiting, nearly back asleep, by the time Gerard picks up. "Hey," he says, sounding cautious.

"Gee." Frank blinks his eyes open, then shuts them again. Trying to focus, even in the dark, makes his head hurt more. "Hi, I just – fuck, what time is it?" Frank doesn't want to open his eyes again to find the clock.

"Late," Gerard says anxiously. "I thought maybe – are you okay? Did something happen?"

"No, I just –" Frank presses his face into the pillow. "I’m sorry, I'm sick, a-fucking-gain. I was gonna call. I just kept falling asleep."

"Oh fuck, Frank," Gerard says, and laughs a little. "I’m sorry, I'm just fucking _relieved_. I thought – I don't know what I thought." Frank hears the click of Gerard's lighter and the unmistakable sound of him taking a drag, and fuck, he wants a cigarette, Jesus. Even though just thinking about it sets him off on a coughing jag. When he manages to catch his breath, Gerard's waiting for him, quietly, which Frank just fucking loves about him, seriously. "You okay, Frankie?"

Frank makes a noise which he hoped says, _fine, yes, go on_. It's the closest he can come.

"I thought you were under a bus. Or something. Maybe mad at me." Gerard takes another drag, and lets it out, long and slow, into the phone. "Maybe under a bus, and mad at me. I worry, I don't know."

Frank presses his grin against his pillow. "Not under a bus," he manages hoarsely. "Not mad. Just fucking sick."

"How sick?" Gerard asks worriedly. "You sound like total crap."

Frank feels like total crap. Frank feels, actually, like he's not going to be able to stay awake much longer. "I'm fine," he says, though, and swallows down another cough. "This happens to me all the fucking time. It's just a cold. It's no big thing."

"Oh," Gerard says uncertainly. "Do you – I mean." He's silent for a second, and Frank, letting the phone rest against his ear, wishes he wasn't so fucking far away across town. "Can I do anything? Do you need anything?"

A different life? Frank thinks, but, "A new immune system?" is all he says. "Nah, I'm okay, I'll be okay." He takes a breath, and starts coughing again, which makes his whole body fucking hurt. He has tears in his eyes by the time he manages to stop. "Fuck."

"Don't be sorry," Gerard says. "It's – just take care of yourself, Frank."

"I will." Frank hunches down further under the blankets, still completely chilled. "Gee, I'm – I gotta go, I can't even see straight."

"Okay," Gerard says anxiously. "Okay, just – sleep, and call me tomorrow, okay? Okay, Frankie?"

"Yeah," Frank says, "I – okay, Gee."

He doesn't actually remember hanging up. He wakes up later, to the weak early morning sunlight coming in through his bedroom window, and manages to get up to pee, and take more aspirin, and stumble back to bed, dragging the covers up over himself.

His mom was sure to have checked on him, but Frank doesn't remember that at all, just wakes up a whole hell of a lot later – his phone, when he finds it tucked somewhere under his covers, says it's past eleven in the morning – feeling completely discombobulated. His mom left him water and a note that says to go downstairs and eat something and drink some tea with honey. Frank does – he puts on a hoodie, because he just cannot get warm, and drags himself downstairs, and makes some toast, and some tea. He manages to eat some of the toast, and drink almost all the tea. Even though his head feels heavy like lead, and his chest is fucking full of he doesn’t even know what – it doesn't feel _good_ , though, and he doesn't want to get pneumonia again, he really, really fucking doesn't.

He just crosses all the fingers he has and goes back upstairs and he's actually, actively _dizzy_ by the time he gets back to his bed. He can't feel his hands and he's clumsy and slow in dragging the covers over himself and if he maybe cries a _tiny bit_ into his pillow, it's because he's fucking exhausted and frustrated and hates his life, okay, and not because he's a giant girl or whatever.

When he wakes up next, he is pretty sure he's not awake at all, actually, because when he manages to open his eyes, he sees his mom leading Gerard into his room. It's so fucking weird that he just sort of lies there, waiting for he doesn’t even know what - the dinosaurs or the zombies to show up. Instead, his mom is saying, "Frank, honey? Your…friend is here. Gerard? He was really anxious to see you."

Frank blinks and realizes this is real, and pushes himself up a little. "I – oh man, okay." He shoves his hair off his forehead with one hand, and okay, his mom is looking weirded out and maybe a little annoyed, and Gerard is looking _totally_ uncomfortable but also can't take his eyes off of Frank.

"I'm really sorry, Mrs. Iero," Gerard's saying, and he's literally wringing his hands together like an old lady and shifting from foot to foot the way he does, and it would be really fucking funny to see if Frank could only get his brain back online. "I – I just had to see him, I was really worried, and –"

"Frank?" His mom says, cutting Gerard off, and Frank gives her a smile, and pushes himself up further, doesn't cough even though his chest is tight and killing him.

"I'm good, Mom, it's fine. It's –" And fuck, now is as good a time as any, what's she gonna do, kick him while he's down? "This is Gerard, yeah. He's my –" And fuck, he'd been all set to come out to his mom about this, but honestly, right as the words are coming out of his mouth, he realizes _Gerard_ might not be prepared for Frank to come out to his mom about this. But fuck it, Frank is too fucking sick to think. If Gerard braved the horrible awkwardness of trying to get past Frank's mom to see Frank, he can't be _un_ invested, so Frank continues with the horribly awkward introduction of, "He's my – boyfriend, okay? Gerard, this is my mom."

Gerard and his mom both give him matching, equally startled looks, which is fucking hysterical. Then Gerard offers his mom a tentative handshake, and seriously, if giggles wouldn't set off a coughing fit to end all coughing fits (and possibly Frank's life), Frank would be _losing his shit_ right now. It's fucking funny, and he's so goddamned relieved to have it out there, he doesn't even know what to do with it.

"Oh," Frank's mom says, and she actually _does_ shake Gerard's hand. "Nice to meet you," she manages, and sounds like she means it. "I'll leave you boys alone, then. But not for too long." She gives Gerard a look.

"Oh, no," he says quickly. "I wouldn't – he needs his rest." He eyes her tentatively, and she softens – slightly.

"Exactly. Thank you for understanding. Twenty minutes, Frank – I mean it." She gives _Frank_ a look, a _look_ , and Frank knows they'll be talking about this as soon as she thinks he's well enough.

"Fuck." Gerard sits down tentatively at the foot of Frank's bed as soon as the door closes. "She's a little scary."

"I know, right?" Frank actually feels sort of proud about what a protective mama bear his mom can be. "Why are you all the way over there?"

"Because I feel like she'll _know_ if I come closer," Gerard says with a half-smile, but he moves immediately further up the bed till he's close enough to lean down and kiss Frank.

Frank pushes up into it, and oh god, he's missed this, even though it's only been three days.

"Fuck," Gerard says, pulling back. "You're really hot."

"I know, right?" Frank says, grinning a little.

Gerard shakes his head, doesn't even smile. "You're burning up."

It hits Frank that Gerard hasn't seen him like this before, and is actually really _worried_ about him. It's kind of adorable. It's also kind of nice to have someone other than his _mom_ concerned for him – someone who it isn't kind of their job to be concerned. Gerard spends the twenty minutes sitting against the headboard, curled up close to Frank, not concerned about germs or anything, just worried and constantly touching Frank like he's reassuring himself Frank is there, and okay, and not under a bus.

Frank feels like a total loser, because he's done nothing but sleep for days, but he's so tired he can barely focus his eyes. His cough is really getting worse - he loses it a couple of times while Gerard is there, coughing so hard he feels like he's going to come apart. Gerard just pushes up against Frank and holds onto him till he gets it under control.

Frank feels stupid and ridiculous and pretty much completely un-hot, but he also can't make himself let go of Gerard. Frank's slumped forward, his forehead pressed against the worn denim of Gerard's leg, and it's fucking comforting, okay? He keeps his eyes closed as he says, his voice coming out all shot and unrecognizable, "Fuck. Sorry. I just –"

"Shh." Gerard's fingers are in Frank's hair, kind of stroking it, kind of just running through it, even though it's gross and sweaty and hasn't been washed in days. Gerard doesn't seem to mind – he's gently combing through it with his fingers, and it feels weird and good and Frank inches closer on the bed and curls one hand around Gerard's thigh. He doesn't want Gerard to go, pretty much ever.

Gerard talks to him, telling him random stories about school, and about Mikey, and Frank falls asleep without meaning to. When he wakes up, Gerard is gone, but there's a drawing on a scrap of paper, propped up against the lamp on Frank's bedside table. It's a picture of Frank as a superhero, tights and boots and everything, and he's triumphed over an army of germs, their tiny round bodies scattered all around him, with Frank with his hands on his waist, looking victorious. Gerard has drawn himself a little behind Frank, glaring sternly at the germs. It's the cutest thing Frank has ever seen. He leaves it there so he can see it whenever he wakes up.

Frank misses the rest of the week of school – he's really fucking sick, and it takes two more days until he can even stay awake for more than an hour or so at a time, and even after that, he feels weird and weak and shaky every time he gets up. He doesn't end up in the hospital this time, though, so he counts it as a win.

He misses the fuck out of Gerard – he doesn't come back to visit, but he calls a bunch of times, and doesn't get mad when Frank falls asleep in the middle of a sentence, which Frank does more than once, even, fuck his fucking life. Frank misses him so much, it makes him feel worse than being sick did, and by the end of the week, he's desperate to see him. He makes like he's feeling better than he actually is, and tells his mom that he has to go for study group on Friday night, even though he's going over Gerard's.

(Frank and his mom haven't talked, really, about the boyfriend revelation, yet. It's coming, Frank knows, from the looks his mom's been giving him, but he's betting his mom is waiting for him to be one hundred percent better before broaching that particular topic.)

He drives over to Gerard's, and he really was feeling pretty okay, but by the time he gets there, he's starting to think this wasn't such a good idea. He's exhausted before he even gets to the front door. But Gerard is there right away, waiting for him, has clearly been watching for him. He breaks into this big grin when he opens the door, which pretty much immediately falls away to concern when he gets a good look at Frank.

"It's fine," Frank says, when Gerard frowns and tugs him inside. "I'm fine, can we just go – come on, let's go downstairs."

"Yeah, okay." Gerard's still frowning, and he crowds Frank down the stairs, keeping a firm hand on his arm.

"I'm _fine_ ," Frank says irritably, shaking Gerard off when they get to the bottom of the stairs, then has to sit down abruptly on the bottom step when a wave of dizziness hits him. It's ridiculous, and he hates this.

Gerard hovers over him worriedly, until Frank takes a breath, and another, then holds up a hand to let Gerard pull him to his feet. "Fuck, Frank," Gerard says, sounding a little pissed, actually. "You shouldn't even be out of bed."

Frank lets Gerard drag him to the couch, depositing him there gently and digging out an afghan to drape over him. "I'm fine, this isn’t – it’s not anything, it happens all the time," Frank insists. He's pissed, too. He's fucking sad, and lonely, and _sick_ , and he missed Gerard, he feels like he's always fucking missing Gerard, even when Gerard is right there in the room with him.

But Gerard is climbing onto the couch with him, pressing against him and kissing him, like he can't help it. Like he has no control, either, like he's just as sad and confused and fucking tired as Frank is. Frank can't catch his breath, and it's maybe because he's still not well, but maybe because of how hot and anxious Gerard is against him. He kisses Gerard again and again, and Gerard sinks down against him, holding him together there on the couch. Frank can't tell if it's him or Gerard who's shaking.

Frank falls asleep with Gerard holding him on the couch, because seriously, he's not totally better yet. When he wakes up, Gerard is across the room at his drawing board, sketching. He's been working like crazy on his final project, which is due soon, Frank knows, and Frank is still half-asleep, but he's pretty fucking content to watch Gerard draw. He's hunched over his board, his hair crazed from running his fingers through it, his brow furrowed, completely lost in his work. Frank fucking loves this; he loves being here. He loves being part of this, in whatever way he can.

He wants – he doesn't even know. He wants to be with Gerard all the time. He wants Gerard to be happy in a way that he never seems to be. Gerard is half-distracted, half-concerned all the time. Frank feels, somehow – and it's crazy, he knows it's crazy – but he feels like he's kind of fighting with Gerard's dead grandmother for attention, for control or something. Gerard is so focused on what he thinks Elena wanted from him that Frank feels like he's forgotten how things change, how things evolve, how everything is a work in fucking progress. And how maybe if Elena were here now, she'd be easier on Gerard than Gerard is on himself.

Gerard talks about Elena so much, Frank feels like he almost _knows_ her. Frank feels like if she were here, if she could see Gerard's face when he talks about wanting something more, wanting something different. How her face might soften, and how she'd push him in the direction that he is so completely incapable of pushing himself.

Gerard looks up at Frank, and his face is caught in the half-light of the lamp attached to the top of his drawing board. It casts him in shadow, all angles and outlines, and Frank can't help but smile sleepily at him from the couch. Frank feels rested; he feels languid. He stretches, and Gerard's eyes follow the movement of his body.

Frank goes from sleepy to turned on in about two seconds. That's what Gerard does to him, that's all it takes, just a look. Gerard feels it too – he bites his lip and drops his pencil and lets it roll away across the floor as he pushes up out of his chair and comes over to Frank. "Hi," he says, sitting down on the couch beside Frank, his hip pressed against Frank's side. "You were _out_."

Frank stretches again, slow and sexy on purpose this time, watching Gerard's face. Gerard's eyes go dark and he puts one hand on Frank's hip, heavy and hot. "How long was I asleep?" Frank asks.

"A couple of hours." Gerard is shifting now, moving so he's lying down beside Frank on the couch. He's pressed up close against him, not quite on top of him, but fitted together, his leg sliding over Frank's.

"Oh man." Frank shifts, pressing closer to Gerard. "I must have needed it."

"How are you feeling?" Gerard tilts his head, studying Frank. "You looked like crap before, but you've got more color now."

Fuck, yeah, Frank has more color. His blood feels hot inside him. He's half-hard just from Gerard looking at him, just from Gerard being close. "I feel good," he says, and he wraps one hand around the back of Gerard's neck and draws him down close. "C'mere, I'll show you." And just like that, they're kissing, and it goes from, like, zero to sixty like _that_. It feels like it's been for fucking _ever_ since he's been able to kiss Gerard like this and they're going at it hot and heavy almost at once.

Frank can't catch his breath, but it has nothing to do with his crappy lungs and everything in the world to do with Gerard sliding on top of him, his weight heavy and good. The afghan is in between them, in the fucking way, and Frank is bucking up his hips impatiently, trying to get it out from in between them; trying to get at _Gerard_. Gerard is panting and distracted above him, _not helping_ , just grinding down against Frank every time Frank moves his hips up, and biting at Frank's neck every time Frank pulls his mouth away to say, "Move, c'mon, _move_ , just let me –"

And then all he can do is clutch at Gerard and go, "Ah, fuck, ah fuck, _fuck_ ," because Gerard's mouth is at this one spot low down on his neck that is just zinging right the fuck through him. His toes are curling, and he can't catch his breath; he's gasping really quietly because he can't move or breathe or do anything at all until Gerard's mouth releases with a wet slurp and Frank sucks in a really loud breath and _shoves_ Gerard back.

"What?" Gerard is breathless, his face flushed and his eyes hot. "Frankie, fuck, I fucking –"

Frank doesn't answer – he's too busy shoving the afghan away for all he's worth. It's off of him, finally, and the cool air of the basement feels like a fucking blessing. Gerard is trying to sink back down against him, but Frank is having none of that, because he is _determined_ , here. He is scrabbling at Gerard's pants – fuck, he wants the whole thing, he wants Gerard naked and spread out on a bed, on a _real bed_ , not Frank's fucking twin size or Gerard's goddamn _bunk bed_. Frank has fucking fantasies of renting a motel room for a night, just so he can get one fucking night of having _space_ and _privacy_. A door with a lock. Not having to worry about being loud. _Space_ to spread Gerard out and lick all those places Frank never, ever thought he'd want to put his tongue, but fuck, fuck, he wants it with Gerard, he wants to do a million fucking filthy things with Gerard that he's sometimes fucking shocked his brain ever even came _up_ with.

"Listen," Gerard says, but he's mouthing at Frank's neck as he says it, so Frank's pretty sure he doesn't have to actually listen. "Fuck, Frank, I don't – you're not –"

"What?" Frank pants finally. "What what _what_." He's got his hands shoved in between them, and the button open on Gerard's pants. It's been way too fucking long – before he got sick, Gerard had been really fucking busy on a project, so it's been weeks, actual _weeks_ , since they've done anything at all. And maybe he's not one hundred percent yet, but his blood feels like it's on _fire_.

"You're sick, I don’t want to make it worse, I just –" Gerard cuts off as Frank tugs his zipper down and pushes his hand inside his jeans. "Oh my fucking –"

"Right?" Frank breathes, because oh my fucking _yes_. He's got his hand wrapped around Gerard's cock, and Gerard has kind of slid to his side onto his hip, wedged half between the back of the couch and Frank, so that Frank has better access to his cock. Frank takes that to mean Gerard doesn't _actually_ want to stop.

"Right." Gerard's breath is coming fast. "God, Frank, yeah, please…"

Oh god, Frank loves that breathless voice Gerard gets when he's turned on - it gets him going so hard and so fast he doesn’t even know what to do with it. "What?" he says, because he wants to hear Gerard say it. He wants to _hear_ it. "What, what do you want me to do?"

He keeps his hand wrapped around Gerard's cock, and it's smooth and hot and perfect. Gerard is trying to rock his hips forward, but he's trapped between the back of the couch and Frank, and he can't move very much. Frank can't catch his breath, he's so turned on he thinks he might _explode_. He's so, so hard, and he's got one hand buried in Gerard's hair, and he just wants to yank on it, wants to drag Gerard's head back so he can just _go after_ him with everything he's got. He feels like he's suspended, one hand on Gerard's cock, the other in his hair, and oh god, he wants to slide forward over the edge.

"Fuck," Gerard grinds out, his cheeks flushed, his voice rough. "Frank, fuck, please, move your hand, I want you to just–"

Frank can't take it any more – he's moving his hand, he's jerking Gerard off, and he doesn't even realize he's moving, but he _is_. He's yanking at Gerard's hair, dragging his head back so he can lick and suck at his neck - he feels Gerard groaning under his lips – while he strokes his hand roughly over Gerard's cock. "Yeah, Gerard, c'mon, tell me, _tell me_ –"

"F-Frankie." Gerard's having a hard time getting the word out, and he's scrambling for the back of the couch with one hand, like he needs something to hold onto. He's sweaty and shaking so hard against Frank already, and fuck, it's been too fucking long, Frank doesn't even know what to _do_ with himself. Making out on the couch isn't enough; handjobs aren't enough. He wants to do _everything_ to Gerard. He wants it. He wants it so _bad_.

"Fuck, Gerard, _fuck_." He takes his hand off Gerard's cock so he can move him, drag him so he's on his back and Frank can climb on top of him. He wants to jerk him off, but he wants more than that – he wants to see, he wants to touch, he wants it to be both of them together. Besides, he really wants his cock out of his pants. Gerard is fumbling at Frank's pants as soon as Frank straddles him, and between the two of them, they get his fly open in about twice the time it would have taken Frank to do it himself.

But whatever, whatever, what the fuck _ever_ , every time Gerard's hands brush against him, Frank gets this fucking shiver down his spine like nobody's business. The two of them finally, _finally_ , get his pants shoved down his hips, and oh fuck, yeah, Gerard wraps his rough hand around Frank's cock and it feels so fucking good.

"Gee." His spine won't hold him up any more, he slumps forward over Gerard on the couch, his knees on either side of Gerard's hips, and oh god, it brings their dicks together in the best fucking possible way. Frank hitches his hips forward as Gerard pulls his hand away, letting Frank slide up against Gerard in a way that makes Frank gasp, and makes Gerard groan hotly against his neck.

"Fuck, Frankie, _fuck_ , I missed you." Gerard has his hands spread out on Frank's hips, hanging onto him, dragging him forward and down. And Jesus Christ, Gerard leaks like a motherfucker when he is turned on like this, making the whole space between their bodies so slick and wet that Frank slides against him real easy.

"Jesus." Frank buries his face against Gerard's neck. He doesn't want Gerard to see his face; he doesn't want Gerard to see how fucking undone he is by something as simple as this. "God, Gee," he manages, and if his voice comes out thick and choked, it's because of Gerard shoving his hips up against Frank's; it's because of Gerard's hands clenched tight around Frank's hips, dragging him forward and down so good, so good, so fucking, fucking _good_.

"Frank," Gerard says into his hair. "Oh fuck, oh fucking – don't stop, okay? I'm fucking – close, I'm –"

Frank couldn't stop if his life fucking depended on it. He's rocking up against Gerard and he can't catch his breath, but he doesn’t fucking care if he'll be coughing for an hour after this, all he wants in the fucking world is this. Gerard's sweating and shaking against him and Frank's shoving forward against all the slickness between them. Gerard is arching up, now, moaning so loud that Frank can't help but think of Gerard's _parents_ upstairs.

He forgets, though, in the next second, as he drags his head back so he can see. He wants to see it, wants to see as Gerard tilts his head back, his eyes closed really fucking tightly as he gasps up at the ceiling, his mouth open and tense, fucking lost in this. Gerard's going after it like he can't control it, digging his fingers in _hard_ against Frank's hips, and actually fucking _writhing_ on the couch in a way Frank never could have ever pictured, but is so fucking hot to witness that he knows he'll be jerking off to it for a very long time.

"Fuck, Frank, you're so – I'm going to – fuck, _fuck_ –" And Gerard's shaking hard and coming between them right there on the couch, his jeans still shoved down this thighs, his head pressed back against the cushion.

"Oh Jesus Christ, Gee." Frank's voice comes out crazed even to his own ears, as he slides his cock up against the slick mess Gerard just made between them. "I just - I want –"

"No." Gerard shoves up hard with his hips, manhandling Frank back and over till he's sitting on the couch. " _My_ turn. _I_ want."

Frank, dizzy and fuck-dumb, can only watch, confused, as Gerard climbs off the couch and slides to his knees between his legs, and looks up at him for a quick, breathless second, then lowers his head, licking slowly up through his own come on Frank's stomach before sinking his mouth down over Frank's cock.

Frank hasn't jerked off in over a week. The fact that Frank has lasted this long is a testament to the sheer distraction power of Gerard getting off all over him. Gerard's hot mouth is sinking down over his cock, down, and down, wet and hot. When Frank jerks his hips up, his hands digging into the couch, Gerard just groans and takes it, sucking him down deep and hot and so fucking good. Frank is so caught up in this, he can't stop. It's like his whole world has narrowed to Gerard's mouth - he has no control, all Frank can do is sink back into the couch and thrust his cock up into Gerard's mouth. Gerard is holding onto Frank's hips and he goes down deep and is, oh god, swallowing around him – and that is it, that is motherfucking _it_ , Frank is coming so hard his head spins with it, while Gerard moans around him.

"Sorry," he rasps, when Gerard pulls off his cock and rests his head against Frank's thigh.

"What are you sorry for, dumbass?" Gerard says blissfully, looking up at him.

"I wanted that to be – I don't know." Frank can't think. He can barely keep his eyes open, let alone string a whole thought together. "I wanted it to be together."

"We are together," Gerard says, kneeling up so he can kiss Frank.

Frank haphazardly kisses him back, barely hitting his lips. "Shit," he slurs. "You just – I'm fucking done." He raises one arm, lets it fall back down heavily on the couch. "I'm fucked out, you did me in." He looks up at Gerard, a little worried. "I hope you didn't catch my cold, from that."

Gerard giggles a little, still kneeling between his legs. "I really, really don't fucking care if I did." He kisses Frank quickly. "It was worth it."

Gerard sits back, pulling his own pants up first, then helping Frank tug his own up. Frank's hands aren't working right; he can't even help that much. "Gee," he says, already more than half asleep as Gerard moves him so he's laid out on the couch again. "Curfew. Midnight."

"I'll wake you." Gerard presses a kiss to Frank's temple as he drags the afghan back over him. "It's fine. Sleep, Frankie, okay?" He sounds a little worried, and Frank wants to tell him to chill, only his eyes won't open all the way, and he's not sure Gerard's paying attention, and then he's asleep.

***

 

Frank's mom does, in fact, sit Frank down a few days after Frank gets better, to have A Talk. They're in the kitchen, and his mom puts a cup of coffee in front of Frank, and sits down across from him. "Frank, honey," she says. "Tell me about Gerard."

Frank sighs inwardly, his face getting hot already from the sheer embarrassment of the conversation. "I – he's pretty great, Mom," he says, watching as she sips her coffee, and studies him like she can figure things out just by looking. "I promise, he is."

"I'm sure he is," she says. "I wondered – " She stops, clearly getting the words lined up in her head. "Well, I wondered how much older than you he is."

"He's only twenty-two," Frank says, and follows up quickly with, "He still lives at home, even. He's in school."

His mom nods soberly, and he can see her biting back words. "That's good," she says. "I'm glad to hear that." She takes another sip of coffee. "How long have you –"

This conversation is going to actually _kill_ Frank. "Been gay?" he breaks in, defiantly. "It's not new, Mom. I promise you that. He didn't recruit me or something, if that's what you're asking."

"I'm…glad to hear that, too." She puts her coffee mug down on the table, and looks up at Frank, her eyes a little amused. "But what I was asking was, how long have you been seeing him?"

"Oh." Frank's an asshole. Obviously. "Oh. Like. A couple of months. Not that long. It wasn’t a secret, or anything."

"I know, Frank," she says quietly, looking at him serious and soft now. "I know it wasn't. It's okay, I just want to know that you're okay. All right?"

"Yeah," he says. "Yes, yeah, I –" He looks up at her, beseechingly, feeling super young all of a sudden, like he's fourteen again and realizing that he doesn't want to _be_ Han Solo, he wants to _do_ Han Solo. "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to keep it from you, there just wasn't a good time."

"I figured." She wraps her hands around her mug. Frank realizes that they're not just talking about Gerard anymore. "You can always talk to me, Frank," she says, and she looks at him again, and he feels like she knows. Like she knows _everything_ , and yeah, she means it when she says he can talk to her, but she also means that – she gets it. Somehow.

"I love you, Mom." He feels horrible and awkward, and there are all these things in his head that he wants to say, but it's tangled up inside, so all can do is say, "I love you, okay?"

"Yeah, Frankie." She reaches her hand across the table, and wraps it around his. "I know. Now." She sits back, and clears her throat. "Tell me about Gerard. He's very cute. But does he wash his hair, ever?"

" _Mom_ ," he groans, but he's grinning, because, "Well, no. Not a lot, anyway."

***

Frank has barely seen Gerard lately - Gerard's so fucking deep in his senior project, he hardly sees the light of day. It’s not that Gerard is blowing him off – Frank worried about that at first, but that's not it. Frank calls and Gerard doesn't pick up, but hey, Gerard can't find his phone half the time, or else doesn't even recognize that the sound he's hearing is his _phone ringing_ , and Frank knows that, so he doesn't take it personally.

Frank leaves a message every time, even though he knows that almost always, Gerard will just check the number on the missed call log and call him back. Frank knows eventually Gerard will go in to clear out his voicemail box, and he'll have all these messages from Frank, and then he'll call him and his voice will be all quiet and happy.

And Gerard does call Frank, usually in the middle of the night – Frank has taken to keeping his cell phone under his pillow, where the vibration will wake him up. Gerard is usually drunk, when he's painted himself out, drunk and fucking _scared_. Frank can hear it in his voice, and Gerard usually calls him when he's drunk enough to not hold back.

"What if I’m not good enough, Frankie?" Frank can hear him sucking in smoke from his cigarette. "What if I finish and after all of this work, they just look at it and shake their heads?"

"They won't," Frank says. "I promise, they _won't_." Frank knows they won't – he may not know from art, but he knows that Gerard is really fucking good. He almost doesn't want to say that; he almost doesn't want to push it too hard. Gerard is really fucking good; Gerard might be able to really make it in the art world. But. He doesn't _want_ to. It's not in his _heart_ , not the way it should be. Gerard is painting himself into a corner, literally.

"But what if they do?" Gerard is persistent and a little slurred, and Frank knows he's at that limp point of the evening, where he's created what he could and is too drunk to go further, and can just lean back and smoke and study it and find every flaw and damn himself for it.

"They _won't_ ," Frank says again. "You have no idea how good you are. Do you want me to come over tomorrow to see? I'll tell you. I'll _show_ you."

"I can't," Gerard says, tiredly. "I have to meet with my advisor at – fuck, fuck, ten in the fucking morning, why the fuck did I say okay to that?" He sighs, and takes another drag. "And I have my therapist after that, and class in the afternoon, and this fucking thing still isn't fucking finished, and fuck, Frankie, I _miss_ you." He ends on almost a sob, and Frank bites his lip, fighting off the surge of anger and fucking despair over Gerard caught in this endless fucking loop.

"I miss you, too." Frank tries to keep his voice steady. Gerard doesn't need another fucking person tugging on him. "It'll be okay. It will."

Gerard snorts. He doesn't believe it. Frank doesn't believe it either. Gerard goes to therapy every fucking week, and it does no fucking good. Frank thinks the woman he sees either has to be the worst fucking therapist in human history, or else Gerard fronts so hard when he's in with her that she has nothing to work with.

"I just – I love you, Frank, I –" Gerard takes a deep breath, and it echoes over the phone line.

Frank closes his eyes and breathes through his nose. It's late, Gerard's drunk, and he doesn't know it's the first time he's said that. He won't even remember by morning. Frank knows that. He does. "You gotta go to sleep, Gee," Frank says. "It's fucking late." It's late for Frank, too – he has to be up for class in about four hours.

"I know." Gerard sounds fucking shot. "Wish you were here, Frankie."

"Me too." Frank turns his face into the pillow and closes his eyes, his phone hot against his ear. "I – me too."

Gerard hangs up without saying goodbye – par for the fucking course for him, and Frank doesn't get offended anymore. Frank lies there with his head in the pillow for a long time before sleep comes.

***

Frank's actually spending more time with Mikey than with Gerard. Mikey's home more often than not, and Frank goes over there kind of a lot, on the off-chance of catching Gerard at home, even when he's not answering his phone.

Mostly he's not there.

"He's spending all of his time at the studio on campus," Mikey says. "He says he needs a change in venue." He shrugs.

Frank is pacing in the Way's living room, too wound up to even sit. This is the third time in two weeks he's swung by to try to catch Gerard, but Gerard is missing in fucking action. "Mikey, he's fucked _up_. He's fucking – I don't know, _burying_ himself in this. He doesn't even _like_ it."

"He does," Mikey says staunchly. "He likes the art part."

Frank just looks at him.

"He just doesn't like…the rest of it," Mikey says slowly. His expression doesn't change, not really, but he pushes his glasses up his nose uncomfortably, like even admitting that much is him betraying Gerard.

Frank gets that Mikey's caught in the middle of this, he does get that. "I know." Frank sits down heavily in the flowered arm chair next to the couch. "I know, Mikey, but where the fuck is he lately? In his head? He's _gone_. I'm fucking _worried_."

"Gerard gets like this," Mikey says. "I –" He presses his lips together. "I know he's fucked up, but he has to do this, okay? It's not just him, it's Elena, too. It's important."

"Yeah," Frank says quietly. "Yeah, Mikey, no, I get that." He knows that Mikey was just as close to Elena as Gerard was, just as devastated when she died, and with her gone, Mikey looks to Gerard as, like, Frank doesn't even know. As everything. Even though Mikey can see Gerard falling to fucking pieces in front of him, he doesn't know what to do. Frank can see that. Mikey won't step in, because to him, it feels like stepping in is like standing up against Elena, and he _cannot_ do that

"He'll even out." Mikey looks at Frank. "He always does. He just gets caught up sometimes. He wants to do right by her."

"Yeah," Frank is exhausted, suddenly. "Yeah, I – you're probably right. Just. Keep an eye on him, okay? Tell him to call me." Frank gets up to go, and looks down at Mikey on the couch. He's awkward and curled up and he looks like a little kid – he looks scared.

"Hey," Frank says. "You can call me too, okay? If you want to talk."

Mikey shrugs, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Thanks. It's cool. Whatever."

"It'll be okay," Frank says.

"It will," Mikey agrees.

Frank's not sure who they're trying to convince.

***

Frank calls Gerard the next day, and the next, leaving messages, but Gerard doesn't call back.

Frank goes to school, going through the motions, eyeing graduation day and thinking about what happens after that. He lies on his back on his bed when he gets home, and smokes cigarettes out his bedroom window, and bites his nails till they hurt.

Gerard still doesn't call back.

Frank calls him from lunch on a Thursday and Gerard answers with a "Hey, Frankie, _heeey_ ," which means he's already drunk. At 12:30 in the afternoon.

"Fuck," Frank says into the phone. "Fuck, Gee, what are you doing?"

He means it in the more existential sense, but Gerard answers seriously. "I was painting. It's almost done, or it was. I thought it was. But it's just not – it's just _not_ , Frank. I don't know."

Frank takes a breath through his nose and looks around the hall of his fucking high school bustling with kids taking and he feels so fucking far outside of it it kind of makes his stomach twist up a little bit. "Did you sleep last night, Gee?"

Gerard is quiet. "I – no. I was working."

"You gotta _sleep_ , Gerard." Frank presses his forehead against the wall next to the phone booth, staring down at the tile floor beneath his scuffed shoes. "If you don't sleep, if all you do is work, nothing's gonna ever –"

"I know," Gerard says over him. He doesn't sound mad; he sounds fucking desperate. "I know, Frankie, I meant to, I was going to try." Frank hears him take a drag on his cigarette.

"Listen," Frank says. "Listen, I need to see you. Can I see you?"

"Fuck, I fucking want that." Gerard's voice sounds unsteady. "I can't. I just – I have to get my shit together, here. Fuck."

"Right," Frank says, because yes, okay, right. Gerard has deadlines and projects and his future to consider. He's fucked up and drunk and miserable, but he's doing it regardless. He's really fucking good, and maybe Frank is being the stupid one. Maybe Frank should be backing him up, pushing him forward, only – Only. Gerard is so fucking miserable that Frank actually and truly worries about him drinking himself to death over this, and it's fucking killing Frank.

"Gerard," Frank says now, into the phone, where Gerard is waiting patiently, not even seeming to notice that it's taking Frank a full fucking minute to get his shit together enough to respond. "Gerard, listen, just – take a shower, okay? Take a shower, and get your portfolio together, and make your meeting. You've got –" Frank glances at the clock in the courtyard. "Two hours till you need to be there. Not till you need to leave, till you need to _be there_ , okay?"

"Okay." Gerard sounds a little fuzzy still.

"Listen to me," Frank says. "Take a shower. Drink some coffee. Get dressed like a human. You've got time. You can do this."

"I can do this," Gerard says dutifully, dully, back.

"You _can_. And your portfolio rocks, it really fucking does, so fucking trust me, okay, Gee."

"I trust you, Frankie," Gerard says sadly. "I just don't – I don't see it the way you do."

"It's okay, Gee," Frank says. "It's okay. You'll be okay."

"I won't." Gerard laughs, this high, out of control laugh that sends bad shivers down Frank's spine. "I fucking won't, Frank."

"Fuck." Frank plants his head against the wall and squeezes his eyes shut. "Just – hang on, okay, Gee? Get through today. Get through this." He wants to just go over there and yank Gerard out of the stupor and do this for him.

"Yeah." Gerard breathes into the phone a little. "Okay. I – I gotta go."

"Go," Frank says, and takes a breath, holds it. "I –"

Gerard hangs up.

"Love you," Frank says to the dial tone, and his stomach churns hard, even though he knows Gerard can't hear him.

Frank hangs up, his fingers numb, and he looks at the clock again, and then walks out the door. He's got an afternoon of classes left; he has a quiz in statistics this afternoon. He doesn't fucking care. He buys a pack of cigarettes on the way home, and smokes three of them in a row, lighting one off of the other. He coughs his way through each one, his lungs rebelling in every way they can, but he doesn’t care about that, either.

He sits on his porch in the weak spring sunshine when he gets home, and lights a fourth cigarette while he loosens his school tie and untucks his shirt. He thinks, sometimes, that he understands where Elena was coming from more than Mikey, more than Gerard. It's stupid and he knows it and he'd never, ever say it to them, because who the fuck is he to say he knows their grandma better than them? But it _feels_ like it sometimes – all the time - it really does.

Elena wouldn't want Gerard like this. Elena paid for art school because it was what Gerard wanted, what he needed, _then_. Now – Frank feels like he knows for fucking certain that if Elena saw what a fucking mess Gerard was right now, she'd smack him upside the head and tell him to stop being so fucking stupid, get some perspective, and do what it is he needs to _do_. Whatever that is. Frank is so fucking _certain_ that Elena would be on board with that, the same way Frank is: getting Gerard out of this fucking corner he's in and showing him what the potential is out there. Showing him all he can do. Just because he can paint, doesn't mean he _should_. He's so fucking unhappy it's killing him.

Frank knows, he _knows_ that Elena wouldn't stand for that. Gerard is getting in his own fucking way and he won't listen to reason, and Frank doesn't know what to fucking do.

***

Frank white-knuckles it through the last few weeks of school. It's May in Jersey, which should mean spring but mostly doesn't – it's either raining and cold or just cold. He's still wearing a scarf when he leaves for school in the morning, because he so very much does not want to get sick again, and the chill that's still fucking in the air means that he _will_ if he's not careful.

He talks to Gerard on the phone, but doesn't see him. It sucks. Gerard is half-there on the phone anyway – he sounds desperately happy when he hears Frank's voice, but he fades off, losing it, losing himself in this spiral of distraction and depression. Frank ends up holding the phone to his ear long after Gerard has hung up, like he's looking for a referee or someone to step in and call it, tell him he's right, it's _not_ fair, and call a rematch on the conversation or something. Frank cannot fucking win, and he doesn't know what to do.

He finishes up school, pretty much – he barely has finals, just one test and two papers, and if it's not his best work, it's still pretty good and who even fucking cares at this point? He's so impatient with this whole fucking process, and he just needs to be where he's going to be _next_. He's played this out.

"I've played this out," he explains to Mikey, when he cuts his last useless class the next day and goes to see if Gerard is home. Gerard isn't home, because Gerard is never home these days. Mikey had let him in the front door of the Way house with a tilt of his mouth that wasn't exactly a smile, and led him up to the bedroom he shares with Gerard. Frank's sitting on the bottom bunk, just looking at Mikey.

Mikey sits in the desk chair with the broken back by the messy desk he and Gerard share, with the old desktop computer that takes fifty million years to load an email. He looks at Frank, totally expressionless, but Frank still knows that Mikey knows exactly what Frank's pretending not to be trying to smell. "Uh-huh," is all Mikey says.

"Right?" Frank says, like Mikey had heartily agreed with him. "Classes are done, finals are done, I do not fucking care about a fucking ceremony to give me a fucking piece of paper that I already know about."

"What about your mom?" Mikey says after his usual longer-than-strictly-comfortable conversational pause.

"Fuck my mom," Frank says fiercely. Then, "Well, I mean, no, not that, but just." Not fuck his mom, he loves his mom, and she's given up a lot for him, but she just does not get it, at all, _at all_. He wishes he knew how to explain it to her in a way she'd understand, but that hasn't happened yet. "Just," he says, making what he hopes is an eloquent hand gesture.

"Yeah," Mikey says, like he gets it.

Frank sighs, and buries his face in his hands. "What the fuck am I supposed to do, Mikey?"

Mikey's silent for long enough that Frank looks up from his hands. Mikey looks worried, or at least as worried as Mikey ever gets. "Just –" he says, like he can't help himself, and then he looks up at Frank again. "Just don't leave him, okay?"

Frank sits up straight fast enough to bump his head on the upper bunk. "I _wouldn’t_ ," he starts.

"Just don't leave him alone, I mean," Mikey cuts him off. He looks vaguely sick. Like, _green_. "I'm here, but –" Mikey bites his lip, hard, and doesn't meet Frank's eyes. "I'm not enough, okay? Gerard – he fucking needs you." Mikey's bangs have fallen into his face, and he peers up through them now, staring at Frank. "Like, here. Not just on the phone, or whatever."

"I won't," Frank says, stunned. "I wouldn't. I'm here." Frank has no tone. He sounds like Mikey usually does. "I'm _here_ ," he tries again, more staunchly. "Where the fuck is _he_?"

"I don't fucking _know_." Mikey's face crumples, even though his flat tone never wavers, and that is the exact same as bursting into tears for anyone else. "I –" Mikey closes his eyes, not tight, just closed, and breathes in through his nose carefully. "Frank," he says, after a moment, "He needs you. He – I think maybe he –" Mikey blinks his eyes open, and doesn't finish the sentence. "He needs you," he simply says again, and shrugs his eloquent shrug.

"Okay." Frank has his hands clasped together so hard they hurt. "Okay, Mikey."

Mikey looks at him for a handful of seconds, his eyes dark and looking exactly like Gerard's. "Okay," he says finally. Like he believes Frank. Like he thinks Frank has a plan for this. "Okay."

***

Frank does not have a plan for this. Frank has no idea what the hell he's doing. He only knows that Gerard is crashing and burning in a fucking funeral pyre, and that Mikey looked fucking terrified last night.

Frank's graduation day is Saturday. His mom has been trying to pin him down for a party, but he's refused to even discuss it so far, saying talking about it before he actually honest to god graduates is bad fucking luck. It's Tuesday night and his curfew was an hour ago. He's freezing to death on the Ways' lawn, because it's spring in Jersey, and the temperature has plummeted to, like, fifty fucking degrees. He tugs his denim jacket closer around him as he dials Gerard for the second time.

He'd made a deal on craigslist for his laptop last week. He hadn't gotten what he'd hoped for, but he'd gotten enough, and he'd gotten it in cash. He'd gone directly to Ray's, and showed him the money, and told him, in pretty certain terms, what he was looking for. Ray had looked at him for, like, a while, then sighed, and shook his head, and went with him to the music store where he knew a guy.

Which was how Frank came to be standing on the lawn of the Way residence in the middle of the night, the case holding his new, perfect, precious guitar slung carefully over one shoulder as he looks up at the dim light in the window of Gerard and Mikey's room and wills Gerard to _pick up the fucking phone._.

"Frankie?" Finally, fucking finally, Gerard picks up. He doesn't even sound slurred.

"I –" Frank's throat closes up. He can't speak, or even think of words. All he can fucking do is clutch his phone and gaze up at Gerard's window. The curtain moves, and Frank's heart fucking _leaps in his chest_ like he's a lady in one of the Harlequin Romances his mom is addicted to. He doesn't even care. "Gee," is all he managed to get out.

The curtain moves more, and he can see Gerard's figure backlit against the light of the room, looking down at him. Frank presses the phone to his ear, and can't say anything. He just lets the case slide down his shoulder, and grabs it carefully by the neck, holding it up for Gerard to see.

There's silence on the line, except for breathing, and Frank just breathes back. "Frankie," Gerard says again, carefully. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm going to the city." Frank's heart is pounding so hard he can feel it in his temples, and his hands feel cold and numb as he clutches the phone to his ear. "Ray and I are doing it. We're starting a band." He stops, takes a breath. "Come with me," he says.

Gerard is still just standing there in the window, staring down at him.

"Come _with_ me," Frank says again, fiercely. "Do this with me, Gerard. You can do this _with_ me."

"I can't –"

" _Fuck_ that," Frank says, too loud, his voice echoing across the damp lawn. "Come down here," he says more quietly. "Just for a second."

There's a long pause and Frank just stares up at the window. He's still holding his guitar up, like a beacon. He waits.

"Hang on a second," Gerard says finally. "Just – give me a second."

He hangs up, and Frank shuts his phone, doesn't stop looking up at the window even after Gerard disappears from it. A million years later, the front door opens, and Gerard slips out, a darker shadow in the dim light.

Frank is there in an instant, staring at him in the dark. He hasn't actually laid eyes on him in so fucking long, it feels like he's forgotten what he actually looks like. Even with his hair all crazy and dark circles under his eyes, he's the best fucking thing Frank has seen in forever. "You need to come with me."

"I can't," Gerard is saying, almost before Frank gets the words out. He sounds desperate. "There isn't – how _can_ I?"

"All you need is some clothes," Frank says tightly, "whatever cash you have, and your voice." He stops, swallows, his eyes stinging suddenly. "Your voice, Gee," he says softly. "And my guitar, and Ray."

Gerard is looking at him, and shifting closer like he doesn't realize he's doing it.

"Ray will let us crash with him," Frank says urgently. "We're going to do this. We can _do_ this, Gee. We have to." They _have to_.

"I – Frankie, how did you – what about school? What about your mom? What about –" Gerard is waiting – for answers, for Frank.

"She'll get it," Frank says. "I left her a note, I'll call her in the morning. She wants me to be happy. This is the only thing that will make me happy." Gerard's close enough now that Frank can put his hand on his face, and Frank does. "This is the only thing that will save us." It's too much, it's overwrought, but it's _real_ , Frank feels it, he _means_ it. "Come with me." He slides his hand into Gerard's hair and grips tightly.

"I can't leave Mikey here alone," Gerard says helplessly.

"I know how to take the train into the city, Gee."

Frank jerks back, looks over Gerard's shoulder. It's Mikey, leaning in the front doorway. He's got a duffle bag in his hand, crammed full, and Gerard's messenger bag slung over his shoulder. "It's an hour away. I think I can handle it."

"Mikey." Gerard has turned, too, and walks over, clings to Mikey's shoulder. "I can't – what if I –"

"Here." Mikey presses the duffel bag into Gerard's arms, pushes the messenger bag over his shoulder. "Don't let him back in the house," he says to Frank. "He'll never leave."

"But –" Gerard is clutching the bags, confused.

"Clothes," Mikey says. "Smokes. Your lucky jacket, and your favorite Sandman trade. Fifty bucks, too, okay, so don't lose it." He wraps one hand around Gerard's neck, tugs him close into a hug.

Frank hangs back, trying to keep silent, trying not to fuck up whatever magic it is that Mikey is working here.

"I put your favorite set of pens in, too," Mikey says into Gerard's ear. "And a clean sketchpad. Don't stop drawing, just – do what you _need_ to do, too. Okay?"

"Okay," Gerard says, his voice tight and lost in the darkness. He seems really small, for a second, caught in Mikey's arms. "Yeah, I –"

He whispers something into Mikey's ear, too quiet for Frank to hear, and Mikey grins, sudden and bright, over Gerard's shoulder, his eyes closed tight. Then he pushes Gerard away gently, turns him around and aims him towards Frank. "Go," he says. "Call me in the morning."

"Okay," Gerard says, struggling with the bags, his eyes wide and astonished and watching Frank. "Yeah – okay."

"Love you." Mikey turns and goes inside, and the door shuts quietly behind him.

"Okay," Gerard says, and smiles, sudden, soft and brilliant and very close to Frank.

"Okay," says Frank, his heart full to bursting, and hugs him, finally, dragging him closer there in the dark.

***

They catch the three AM into the city – they get to the station just in time to miss the 2:10, which Frank says is not a sign, okay? Gerard tries to believe him, and jitters around the station the entire time they're waiting. He can't help it. Frank just sits on the bench, surrounded by their bags, looking brilliantly happy.

They're two of only a handful of passengers on the train, the bored conductor punching the tickets Frank pulls, crumpled, out of his pocket and moving on. They rock their way out of Jersey, the train lights flickering on and off, the rumble of the train surrounding them, making it feel like they're the only people on the train, the only people in the world.

Gerard feels bewildered and nervous, but Frank is beside him, still smiling, and that makes him feel safer.

"This is right, Gee," Frank whispers in Gerard's ear, as the train rolls through the darkness towards the city. "This is the right thing." His voice is so, so utterly _sure_ , and Gerard turns towards him in the hard seat of the train and kisses him.

Frank makes a sound in his throat and drags Gerard closer, makes him slide over the seat of the train to lean up against Frank, press him against the window, and kiss him, again, and again. "This is right," Frank says again, soft and sure.

Gerard feels something slot together in his brain and the tightness in his chest eases up. It feels right. It _does_.

The lights flicker on and off around them, darkness and light. Frank twines himself around Gerard, and Gerard lets himself be pulled in, kissing Frank and feeling, in the too-light, too-dark flicker of the train, this tiny glimpse of what he thinks is hope.

the end


End file.
